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Perseus and the Lost Meteors

What’s the best way to watch a meteor shower? This question might come up later this week when the annual Perseid Meteor Shower peaks.One thing that is helpful is a dark sky, as demonstrated in the featured composite image of last year’s Perseids. Many more faint meteors are visible on the left image, taken through a very dark sky in Slovakia, than on the right image, taken through a moderately dark sky in the Czech Republic.

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Astronomy Jargon: Magnetars

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! Hang on to your magnetic hats, because today’s topic is magnetars! Continue reading “Astronomy Jargon: Magnetars” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/152071/astronomy-jargon-magnetars/

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A Perseid Below

Earthlings typically watch meteor showers by looking up.But thisremarkable view, captured on August 13, 2011 by astronaut Ron Garan, caught a Perseid meteor by looking down.From Garan’sperspective onboard theInternational Space Stationorbiting at an altitude of about 380 kilometers,the Perseid meteors streak below,swept up dustleft from comet Swift-Tuttle heated to incandescence.The glowing comet dustgrains are traveling atabout 60 kilometers per second throughthe denser atmosphere around 100 kilometers above Earth’s surface.

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Starship is Stacked on the Super Heavy Booster. The Tallest Rocket Ever Built

Once again, things are gearing up at SpaceX’s South Texas Launch Facility, located just outside the village of Boca Chica, Texas. In recent weeks, the aerospace community has been abuzz about the rollout and Static Fire test of the Super Heavy Booster 3 (B3) prototype. This was the first time a booster was tested, which will be responsible for launching the Starship to space in the near future.

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Good News! Red Dwarfs Blast Their Superflares out the Poles, Sparing Their Planets From Destruction

The only known life in the universe lives on a mid-size rocky planet that orbits a mid-size yellow star. That makes our planet a bit unusual. While small rocky planets are common in the galaxy, yellow stars are not. Small red dwarf stars are much more typical, making up about 75% of the stars in the Milky Way.

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Jezero Crater: Raised Ridges in 3D

Get out your red-blue glasses andhover over the surface of Mars.Taken on July 24, the 3D color view is from the MarsIngenuity Helicopter’s 10thflight above the Red Planet.Two images from Ingenuity’s color camera,both captured at an altitude of 12 meters (40 feet), but a few meters apartto provide a stereo perspective, were used to construct the color anaglyph.

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Animals Could Have Been Around Hundreds of Millions of Years Earlier Than Previously Believed

According to the most widely accepted theories, evolutionary biologists assert that life on Earth began roughly 4 billion years ago, beginning with single-celled bacteria and gradually giving way to more complex organisms. According to this same evolutionary timetable, the first complex organisms emerged during the Neoproterozoic era (ca. 800 million years ago), which took the form of fungi, algae, cyanobacteria, and sponges.

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The Tears of the Hero: Get Ready for the 2021 Perseid Meteors

A sure-fire summer shower, the Perseid meteors are set to put on a spectacular show this year. It’s one of my fondest astronomical observing memories of childhood. Growing up in Northern Maine, it was a family tradition to set the lawn chairs out on warm mid-August nights, and watch with my mom and brother as the Perseid meteors slid silently through the inky black sky.

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Russia’s new Module Kicks the Station out of Position, Causes a Delay for Starliner

On July 28th, the International Space Station (ISS) suffered a mishap after a new Russian module (named Nauka) fired its thrusters just hours after arriving. As a result, the entire station was temporarily pushed out of position, forcibly delaying the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission. This would have been Boeing’s CT-100 Starliner second attempt to rendezvous with the ISS as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP).

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Stars and Dust Across Corona Australis

Cosmic dust clouds cross a rich field of stars inthis telescopic vista near the northern boundary ofCorona Australis, the Southern Crown.Less than 500 light-years away the dust cloudseffectively block light frommore distant background stars in theMilky Way.Top to bottom the frame spans about 2 degrees or over 15 light-years atthe clouds’ estimated distance.

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Shadows on the Moon Could be Hiding Water, Even in the Daytime

Shadows have been known throughout history to be excellent hiding places. They may even be hiding unexpected things off the Earth as well. According to a new NASA study, there might be water that moves from shadow to shadow on the moon – even in daylight. Continue reading “Shadows on the Moon Could be Hiding Water, Even in the Daytime”

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Two Spacecraft are Flying Past Venus, Just 33 Hours Apart

When Longfellow wrote about “ships passing in the night” back in 1863, he probably wasn’t thinking about satellites passing near Venus. He probably also wouldn’t have considered 575,000 km separation as “passing”, but on the scale of interplanetary exploration, it might as well be. And passing is exactly what two satellites will be doing near Venus in the next few days – performing two flybys of the planet within 33 hours of each other.

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Tycho and Clavius

South is upin this detailed telescopic view across the Moon’s ruggedsouthern highlands.Captured on July 20, the lunar landscape features the Moon’s young and old,the large craters Tycho and Clavius.About 100 million years young,Tycho isthe sharp-walled 85 kilometerdiameter crater near center, its 2 kilometer tall central peakin bright sunlight anddark shadow.Debris ejected during the impact that created Tycho still make it thestandout lunar crater when theMoon is near full, producinga highly visible radiating system of light streaks,bright rays that extend across much of the lunar near side.

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Astronomers Find a Huge Planet Orbiting its Star at 6,000 Times the Earth-Sun Distance

Tracking exoplanets is hard – especially when that exoplanet is so far away from its parent star that the normally used “transit” method of watching it dim the light of the star itself is ineffectual. But it really helps if the planet is huge, and has its own infrared glow, no matter how far away from its star it might be.

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Scientists Figure out how the Asteroid Belt Attacked the Dinosaurs

How do you track an asteroid that hit the Earth over 60 million years ago? By using a combination of geology and computer simulations, at least according to a team of scientists from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). Those methods might have let them solve a long-standing mystery of both archeology and astronomy – where did the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs come from?

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EHT Resolves Central Jet from Black Hole in Cen A

How do supermassive black holes create powerful jets?To help find out, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) imaged the center of the nearby active galaxy Centaurus A. The cascade of featured inset images shows Cen A from it largest, taking up more sky than many moons, to its now finest, taking up only as much sky as an golf ball on the moon.

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Two Bizarre red Asteroids Somehow Migrated From the Kuiper Belt all the way to the Main Asteroid Belt

If asked to pick what color asteroids in the asteroid belt would be, red is likely not one that would come to mind for most people. But that is exactly the color of two new asteroids found by Hasegawa Sunao of JAXA and an international team of researchers. The catch is the objects don’t appear to be from the asteroid belt at all, but are most likely Trans-Neptunian objects that were somehow transported into what is commonly thought of as the asteroid belt.

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A Perseid Meteor and the Milky Way

It was bright and green and flashed as it moved quickly along the Milky Way.It left a trail that took 30 minutes to dissipate. Given the day, August 12, and the direction, away from Perseus, it was likely a small bit from the nucleus of Comet Swift-Tuttle plowing through the Earth’s atmosphere – and therefore part of the annual Perseids meteor shower.

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NASA Chooses Falcon Heavy Over SLS to Launch Europa Clipper, Saving About $2 Billion

The bureaucracy of government control is slowly fading away in space exploration, at least in the US. A series of delays, cost overruns, and imposed requirements have finally started taking its toll on the Space Launch System (SLS), the next generation NASA rocket system. Now, the space agency has finally conceded a point to the commercial launch industry.

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The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in Light and Sound

Have you heard about the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field? Either way, you’ve likely not heard about it like this – please run your cursor over the featured image and listen! The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (HUDF) was created in 2003-2004 with the Hubble Space Telescope staring for a long time toward near-empty space so that distant, faint galaxies would become visible.

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A Black Hole Emitted a Flare Away From us, but its Intense Gravity Redirected the Blast Back in our Direction

In 1916, Albert Einstein put the finishing touches on his Theory of General Relativity, a journey that began in 1905 with his attempts to reconcile Newton’s own theories of gravitation with the laws of electromagnetism. Once complete, Einstein’s theory provided a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of the cosmos, where massive objects alter the curvature of spacetime, affecting everything around them.

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Lightweight Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic Fuel Tanks Pass a Critical Test, and Could Knock a lot of Weight off a Rocket’s dry Mass

Material science is still the unsung hero of space exploration. Rockets are flashier, and control systems more precise, but they are useless without materials that withstand the immense temperatures of forces required to get people and things off the planet. Now a team from MT Aerospace, working on a grant from ESA, has developed a new type of material that will be immensely useful in one of the most important parts of any rocket engine – the fuel tanks.

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Pluto in Enhanced Color

Pluto is more colorful than we can see.Color data and high-resolution images of our Solar System’s most famous dwarf planet, taken by the robotic New Horizons spacecraft during its flyby in 2015 July, have been digitally combined to give an enhanced-color view of this ancient world sporting an unexpectedly young surface.

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Remembering NEOWISE

It was just last July.If you could see the stars ofthe Big Dipper, you could findComet NEOWISE in your evening sky.After sunsetdenizens of the north could look for the naked-eye cometbelow the bowl of that famous celestial kitchen utensiland above the northwestern horizon.The comet looked like a fuzzy ‘star’ with a tail, though probably not so long a tail as in thismemorable skyviewrecorded from the Czech Republic on July 23th, 2020, near the comet’sclosest approach to planet Earth.

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InSight has Mapped out the Interior of Mars, Revealing the Sizes of its Crust, Mantle, and Core

In May of 2018, NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight) landed on the Martian surface. This mission is the first of its kind, as all previous orbiters, landers, and rovers focused on studying the surface and atmosphere of Mars. In contrast, InSight was tasked with characterizing Mars’ interior structure and measuring the core, mantle, and crust by reading its seismic activity (aka.

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Starliner Will try Again on August 3 After ISS “Emergency”

The planned launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner test flight to the International Space Station (ISS) has been pushed back to Tuesday, August 3 after a mishap involving a newly docked Russian module. Originally, Starliner’s flight was to take place today, July 30, 2021 but NASA and Boeing officials agreed to delay the flight following a “spacecraft emergency” on the space station after inadvertent thruster firings on the new Nauka module caused a loss of attitude control on the ISS.

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Bad News. Those Underground Lakes on Mars? They’re Probably Just Frozen Clay

If you were planning an ice-fishing trip to the Martian south pole and its sub-surface lakes observed by radar in 2018, don’t pack your parka or ice auger just yet. In a research letter published earlier this month in Geophysical Research Letters by I.B. Smith et al., it seems that the Martian lakes may be nothing more smectite, that is, a kind of clay.

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Water Vapour has Been Discovered at Ganymede

Ganymede has been getting alot of attention lately. It was the co-star of a video from Juno recently, and now scientists found something to make it an even more intriguing place visit – water vapor. Continue reading “Water Vapour has Been Discovered at Ganymede” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/151983/water-vapour-has-been-discovered-at-ganymede/

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This is how you get Tatooines. Binary Star Planet Formation

One of the less appreciated aspects of George Lucas’ vision for Star Wars was that he predicted the existence of planets in binary star systems years before we saw even the first exoplanet. Now a team from the University of Cambridge and the Max Planck Institute for Extra-terrestrial Physics have found how exactly those planets can form without being torn apart by their accompanying suns.

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Balloon Mission May Also Work to Detect Quakes on Venus

An opportunity in 2019 lays the groundwork for balloon-borne detectors on Venus, working to unravel a key mystery. The skies of Venus may become a busy place in the coming decade, using technology field-tested here on Earth. A team out of NASA JPL-Caltech hypothesized that terrestrial earthquakes should also produce low-frequency infrasonic sound waves, which would be transmitted from the ground through the atmosphere as changes in barometric pressure.

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A New Plan to Search for Extraterrestrial Artifacts at Earth and Across the Solar System

On October 19th, 2017, astronomers made the first-ever detection of an interstellar object (ISO) in our Solar System. This body, named 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua), was spotted shortly after it flew by Earth on its way to the outer Solar System. Years later, astronomers are still hypothesizing what this object could have been (an interstellar “dust bunny,” hydrogen iceberg, nitrogen icebergs), with Harvard Prof.

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Searching for Dark Matter Inside the Earth

Dark matter remains one of the greatest mysteries in science. Despite decades of astronomical evidence for its existence, no one has yet been able to find any sign of it closer to home. There have been dozens of efforts to do so, and one of the most prominent just hit a milestone – the release and analysis of 8 years of data.

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Strange Intersecting Sand Dunes on Mars

In our exploration of Mars, we’ve seen some strange but naturally occurring shapes. Polygons – a shape with at least three straight sides and angles, typically with five or more – have been seen in several different Martian landscapes, and scientists say these shapes are of great interest because they often indicate the presence of shallow ice, or that water formerly was present in these areas.

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The Event Horizon Telescope Zooms in on Another Supermassive Black Hole

On April 10th, 2019, the world was treated to the first image of a black hole, courtesy of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Specifically, the image was of the Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) at the center of the supergiant elliptical galaxy known as M87 (aka. Virgo A). These powerful forces of nature are found at the centers of most massive galaxies, which include the Milky Way (where the SMBH known as Sagittarius A* is located).

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Mimas in Saturnlight

Peering from the shadows, theSaturn-facing hemisphere of Mimas lies in near darkness alongside adramatic sunlit crescent.The mosaic was captured near the Cassinispacecraft’s finalclose approach on January 30, 2017.Cassini’s camera was pointed in anearly sunward direction only 45,000 kilometers from Mimas.The result is one of the highest resolution views of the icy, crater-pocked,400kilometer diameter moon.

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Europe Launches its new Robotic arm, Which Will Crawl Around the International Space Station Like an Inchworm

The robotic arms of the ISS are some of its most useful tools. The arms, designed by Canadian and Japanese space agencies, have been instrumental in ferrying around astronauts and shepherding modules to one side of the ISS. However, the Russian segment lacked its own robotic arm – until a new one designed by ESA was launched last week.

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Flemings Triangular Wisp

Chaotic in appearance,these tangled filaments of shocked, glowing gas are spread acrossplanet Earth’s sky toward the constellation of Cygnus as part of theVeil Nebula.The Veil Nebula itself is a largesupernova remnant, an expandingcloud born of the death explosion of a massive star.Light from the original supernova explosion likely reachedEarth over 5,000 years ago.

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Perseverance is About to Collect the First Sample on Mars That Could Eventually be Returned to Earth

On Feb. 18th, 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover landed within the Jezero Crater on Mars. Like its predecessor, Curiosity, a fellow member of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program (MEP), the goal of Perseverance is to seek out evidence of possible life on Mars (past and present). A key part of this mission will be the first sample return ever performed on Mars, where samples obtained by Perseverance will be placed in a cache for later retrieval and return to Earth.

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When the Sun Dies, Earth’s Magnetosphere won’t Provide Protection any More

The Earth’s magnetic field is an underappreciated wonder of the natural world. It protects our atmosphere, provides some of the most breathtaking scenery when it creates auroras, and allows people to navigate from one side of the world to the other. Unfortunately, it won’t be able to save us from the death of the Sun though.

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Is there really a 'crisis' in cosmology?

You may have heard about the “cosmology crisis:” Different methods of measuring the age of the universe are giving different results, and cosmologists have no idea why. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/cosmology-crisis-age-of-the-universe

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CG4: A Ruptured Cometary Globule

Can a gas cloud grab a galaxy? It’s not even close. The “claw” of this odd looking “creature” in the featured photo is a gas cloud known as a cometary globule. This globule, however, has ruptured. Cometary globules are typically characterized by dusty heads andelongated tails. These features cause cometary globules to have visual similarities to comets, but in reality they are very much different.

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Observing the Night Side of Venus is Actually Pretty Tricky

Observing the dark side of planets is hard. In the visible spectrum, they are almost unobservable, while in the infrared some heat signatures may come through, but not enough to help see what is going on in a planet’s atmosphere. Now a team from the University of Tokyo think they’ve developed a way to monitor weather patterns on the night side of one of the most difficult planets of all – Venus.

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Incredible! Astronomers see a Moon-Forming Disk Around a Newly Forming Planet

Planetary formation is a complicated, multilayered process. Even with the influx of data on exoplanets, there are still only two known planets that are not yet fully formed. Known as PDS 70b and PDS 70c, the two planets, which were originally found by the Very Large Telescope, are some of the best objects we have to flesh out our planetary formation models.

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Crescent Neptune and Triton

Gliding silently through the outerSolar System, theVoyager 2 spacecraft camera capturedNeptune andTriton together in crescent phase. The elegant picture of thegas giant planet and itscloudy moon was taken from behind just afterclosest approach in 1989. It could not have been taken fromEarth becauseNeptune never shows a crescent phase to sunward Earth.

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A new Balloon-Based Observatory Could Produce Images as Fine as Hubble

Launching satellites is an expensive business – at least for now. But satellites are necessary in astronomy for one major reason – it gets telescopes above the atmosphere. The Earth’s atmosphere and its associated weather patterns are a massive hindrance to collecting good images. If a stray cloud passes in front of the observational target once over the course of a few days, it could ruin the entire image.

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The Edge of Space

Where does space begin?For purposes of spaceflight some would say at theKarman line,currently defined as an altitude of 100 kilometers (60 miles).Others might place a line 80 kilometers (50 miles) above Earth’s mean sea level.But there is no sharp physicalboundary that marks the end ofatmosphere and the beginning of space.In fact, the Karman line itself is near the transition between theupper mesophere and lower thermosphere.

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The Moon has Been Mildly Preventing Coastal Erosion, in the 2030s, That Protection Ends

Planet Earth is currently experiencing an unprecedented warming trend. Average global temperatures are rising at an accelerated rate in response to greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activity. These rising temperatures, in turn, result in the release of additional greenhouse gases (like methane), leading to positive feedback loops that threaten to compound the problem further.

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Elephant, Bat, and Squid

Sprawling emission nebulae IC 1396 and Sh2-129 mixglowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds inthis 10 degree wide fieldof view toward the northern constellationCepheus the King.Energized by its bluish central star IC 1396 (left)is hundreds of light-years across and some 3,000 light-years distant.The nebula’s intriguing dark shapes includea winding dark cloud popularly known as theElephant’s Trunk below and right of center.

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Micrometeorites Churn up the Surface of Europa. If you Want to Find Life, You’ll Need to dig Down a Meter or So

In the coming decade, NASA and the ESA will be sending two dedicated missions that will explore Jupiter’s moon Europa. These missions are known as the Europa Clipper and the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) missions, which will fulfill a dream that has been decades in the making – searching for possible evidence of life inside Europa.

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Neutron Stars Have Mountains, They’re Just a Fraction of a Millimeter High

The universe has some very extreme places in it – and there are few places more extreme than the surface of a neutron star. These ultradense objects form after a supergiant star collapses into a sphere about 10 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter. Their surface is extreme because of the gravity, which is about a billion times stronger than Earth.

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NGC 7814: Little Sombrero with Supernova

Point your telescope toward the high flying constellationPegasusand you can find thisexpanseof Milky Way stars and distant galaxies.NGC 7814 is centered in the prettyfield of view that would almostbe covered by a full moon.NGC 7814 issometimes called the Little Sombrero for itsresemblance to the brighter more famous M104,the Sombrero Galaxy.Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxiesseen edge-on, and both have extensive halos and centralbulges cut by a thin disk with thinner dust lanes in silhouette.

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Here are the First New Pictures From the Fully Operational Hubble

The astronomy community breathed a huge sigh of relief earlier this week when the Space Telescope Science Institute announced the Hubble Space Telescope’s major computer issues had been fixed after a grueling month of recovery work. They had to bring in every expert they could – even retired engineers and scientists — to make it happen, and their success is a tribute to the innovative and creative engineers that NASA has been famous for over the years.

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Ions Surf Through Jupiter’s Magnetic Field, Triggering its Auroras

Auroras come in many shapes and sizes. Jupiter is well known for its spectacular complement of bright polar lights, which also have the distinction of appearing in the X-ray band. These auroras are also extreme power sources, emitting almost a gigawatt of energy in a few minutes. But what exactly causes them has been a mystery for the last 40 years.

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Colors: Ring Nebula versus Stars

What if you could see, separately, all thecolors of the Ring?And of the surrounding stars?There’s technology for that.The featured image shows the Ring Nebula (M57) and nearby stars through such technology: in this case, a prism-like diffraction grating. The Ring Nebula is seen only a few times because it emits light, primarily, in only a few colors.

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What’s Next for Blue Origin After Today’s Successful Flight?

Early this morning, from their Launch Site One facility in West Texas, Blue Origin made history as it conducted the first crewed flight of its New Shepard launch vehicle. The crew consisted of four commercial astronauts: Blue Origin and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, aerospace pioneer Wally Funk, and 18-year old student from The Netherlands Oliver Daemon.

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Blue Origin Successfully Launches the Oldest and Youngest Person to Ever go to Space (oh, and Jeff Bezos too)

On the anniversary of the first Moon landing, Blue Origin became the second commercial space company in just nine days to send people just past the edge of space. During the seemingly flawless 10 minute and 10 second flight, the four passengers on board the New Shepard rocket whooped with glee and exhilaration.

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This is the View From Juno During its Flyby of Ganymede and Jupiter

Visualizations shape how we perceive space exploration. Whether it’s the Pale Blue Dot, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, Earthrise, or any other myriad images captured as part of this great endeavor, they all help inspire the next generation of explorers. Now, with advances in image capture and processing technology, we can finally start to take the next step in those visualizations – video.

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Thors Helmet

Thor not only has his own day (Thursday), but a helmet in the heavens. Popularly called Thor’s Helmet, NGC 2359 is a hat-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages.Heroically sized even for aNorse god,Thor’s Helmet is about 30 light-years across.In fact, the cosmic head-covering is more likean interstellar bubble, blown with a fastwind from the bright, massive star near the bubble’s center.

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Volcanic Activity on Venus Could Explain Phosphine

Ever since the announcement last September that astronomers found evidence of phosphine in the clouds of Venus, the planet has been getting a lot of attention. It’s not surprising. Phosphine is a potential biosignature: On Earth, it is produced by microbial life. Might a similar biological process be taking place in the skies of our sister planet?

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Where can we find a fifth force of nature?

We know of four fundamental forces of nature, with no signs of a fifth. But dark matter and dark energy make up over 90% of all the contents of the universe. So the question remains: could there be a fifth force hiding in the “dark sector” of our universe? Continue reading “Where can we find a fifth force of nature?

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We Need to Fix Space Junk Before It’s Too Late

As of 2020, there were over 19,000 pieces of individually tracked space junk in orbit above the Earth. Of those, a mere 2,200 were operational satellites. As more and more satellites go up, the risk of collisions increases. And what are governments doing to stop it? Basically, nothing. Continue reading “We Need to Fix Space Junk Before It’s Too Late”

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Fantastic Visualization Shows What Would Happen if you Dropped a Ball Across the Solar System

Summertime means it’s time to play ball! But what would it be like to play ball on various locations across our Solar System? Planetary scientist Dr. James O’Donoghue has put together a fun animation of how quickly an object falls on to the surfaces of places like the Sun, Earth, Ceres, Jupiter, the Moon, and Pluto.

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Framed by Trees: A Window to the Galaxy

The photographer had this shot in mind for some time.He knew that objects overhead are the brightest – since their light is scattered the least by atmospheric air.He also that knew the core of our Milky Way Galaxy was just about straight up near midnight around this time of year in South Australia.

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New Images of Mars From China’s Rover

On May 14th, 2021, the China National Space Agency (CNSA) achieved another major milestone when the Tianwen-1 lander successfully soft-landed on Mars, making China the second nation in the world to land a mission on Mars and establish communications from the surface. Shortly thereafter, China National Space Agency (CNSA) shared the first images taken by the Tianwen-1 lander.

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The Andromeda Galaxy in Ultraviolet

What does the Andromeda galaxy look like in ultraviolet light?Young blue stars circling the galactic center dominate. A mere 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda Galaxy, alsoknown as M31, really is just next door as large galaxies go.Spanningabout 230,000 light-years, it took 11 different image fields from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) satellitetelescope to produce this gorgeous portrait of the spiral galaxy inultraviolet light in 2003.

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WIMPS vs. Axions: What is dark matter?

Dark matter rules every galaxy. But what exactly is it? Astronomers believe it to be some kind of new, exotic particle. You may have heard some terms tossed around, like WIMPs or axions. Let’s explore what those terms actually mean. Continue reading “WIMPS vs. Axions: What is dark matter?” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Alphonsus and Arzachel

Point your telescopeat tonight’s first quarter Moon.Along the terminator,the shadow line between night and day,you might find these two large cratersstaring back at you withan owlish gaze.Alphonsus(left) andArzachelare ancient impact craters onthe north eastern shores of Mare Nubium, the lunar Sea of Clouds.The larger Alphonsus is over 100 kilometers in diameter.

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Is the Universe a Fractal?

We find examples of fractals everywhere in nature. Tree branches, snowflakes, river deltas, cloud formations, and more. So it’s natural to ask the ultimate question: is the entire universe one giant fractal? The answer is…no, but sorta yes. Continue reading “Is the Universe a Fractal?” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/151838/is-the-universe-a-fractal/

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Ingenuity is now Mapping the Terrain Around Perseverance

Having eyes in the sky is useful for a variety of activities. Everything from farming to military operations has benefited from the boom in drone usage, as the small aircraft track the progress of crop disease, enemy movements, or how awesome a professor skier looks going down a mountain. Now the benefits of aerial surveillance has spread to other worlds as Perseverance is starting to map out its path with help from Ingenuity.

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Love and War by Moonlight

Venus,named for the Roman goddess of love, andMars,the war god’s namesake, come togetherby moonlightin this serene skyview, recorded on July 11from Lualaba province, Democratic Republic of Congo, planet Earth.Taken in the western twilight sky shortly after sunsetthe exposure also recordsearthshine illuminating the otherwisedark surface of theyoung crescent Moon.Of course the Moon has moved on.

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Don’t Be Surprised if EmDrive Experiments Never Work

Every few years the “EmDrive”, a proposed method of generating rocket thrust without any exhaust, hits the news. Each time, everyone asks: could this be it? Could this be the technological leap to revolutionize spaceflight? Don’t hold your breath. Continue reading “Don’t Be Surprised if EmDrive Experiments Never Work” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Here’s SpaceX’s new Drone Ship: “A Shortfall of Gravitas”

At this point, SpaceX could claim to be both a rocket company and also a maritime shipping company. The company owns a fleet of drone ships for the purposes of providing their rockets with a safe place to retrograde land in the ocean without having to splash down. In the past, they actually had additional ships for fairing catching, Dragon Capsule recovery, and other support efforts.

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The Dark Tower in Scorpius

In silhouette against a crowded star fieldalong the tail of the arachnalogical constellationScorpius,this dusty cosmic cloud evokes for some the image of anominousdark tower.In fact, clumps of dust and molecular gascollapsingto form stars may well lurk within the dark nebula,a structure that spans almost 40 light-years across thisgorgeous telescopic portrait.Known as acometary globule, the swept-back cloud,is shaped by intense ultraviolet radiation fromthe OB association of veryhot stars in NGC 6231,off the upper edge of the scene.

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How did Supermassive Black Holes Form? Collapsing Dark Matter Halos can Explain Them

We don’t quite understand how the first supermassive black holes formed so quickly in the young universe. So a team of physicists are proposing a radical idea. Instead of forming black holes through the usual death-of-a-massive-start route, instead giant dark matter halos directly collapsed, forming the seeds of the first great black holes.

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Video of Richard Branson's desert bike ride was recorded before Unity 22 launch day, Virgin Galactic clarifies

A Virgin Galactic video of founder Richard Branson’s bike ride ahead of his launch into space on the company’s Unity 22 flight in New Mexico this week was actually recorded earlier. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/virgin-galactic-richard-branson-bike-ride-video-update-unity-22

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GW200115: Simulation of a Black Hole Merging with a Neutron Star

What happens when a black hole destroys a neutron star?Analyses indicate that just such an event created gravitational wave event GW200115, detected in 2020 January by LIGO and Virgo observatories.To better understand the unusual event, the featured visualization was created from a computer simulation.The visualization video starts with the black hole (about 6 times the Sun’s mass) and neutron star (about 1.

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According to Elon, Starship Could Chomp up Space Junk

At their South Texas Launch Facility, just outside of the village of Boca Chica, SpaceX is gearing up to test the Super Heavy, the booster element of their Starship launch system. This massive reusable first stage rocket will be responsible for sending the Starship orbital vehicle to space, where it will deliver satellites to orbit, payloads and people to the Moon, and (if all goes as planned) the first human settlers to Mars.

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Exploding Material From a Gamma-ray Burst Scrambled Nearby Magnetic Fields

A team of astronomers has found that giant, organized magnetic fields can help drive some of the most powerful explosions in the universe. But when all is said and done, the shock wave from that blast scrambles any magnetic fields in a matter of minutes. Continue reading “Exploding Material From a Gamma-ray Burst Scrambled Nearby Magnetic Fields”

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Report Suggests That Astronauts Shouldn’t get More Than 600 Millisieverts of Radiation Exposure During Their Career. We get 2-3 a Year Down Here on Earth

Space may be pretty, but it’s dangerous. Astronauts face a much higher dose of ionizing radiation than us Earth-bound folks, and a new report says that NASA’s current guidelines and risk assessment methods are in serious need of an update. Continue reading “Report Suggests That Astronauts Shouldn’t get More Than 600 Millisieverts of Radiation Exposure During Their Career.

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The Sun Hammered Earth With Megaflares in its Youth

Planetary formation theory has been undergoing a lot of changes recently, with an ever expanding litany of events that can potentially impact it. Everything from gravity to magnetic fields seems to impact this complex process. Now scientists want to add another confounding factor – massive solar flares thousands of times more powerful than the most powerful we have ever observed from the Sun.

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Saturns Iapetus: Painted Moon in 3D

What has happened to Saturn’s moon Iapetus? Vast sections ofthis strange world are dark brown, while others are as bright white. The composition of the dark material is unknown, butinfrared spectra indicate that it possibly contains some dark form ofcarbon.Iapetus also has an unusualequatorial ridgethat makes it appear like a walnut.

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Using Saturn’s Rings to Figure out What’s Inside the Planet

It’s tough to see inside of Saturn, because the atmosphere is opaque to all wavelengths of radiation. We have to rely on computer simulations and physics-based guesswork to try to understand the interior of that giant world. But researchers are becoming more adept at a different technique: looking for the slightest motions in the rings of Saturn.

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The Milky Way’s Central bar Spin-Rate is Slowing Down Thanks to Dark Matter

If it were’t for an enormous halo of dark matter enveloping our galaxy, the spin-rate of our central bar should stay pretty constant. But researchers have recently inferred that it has slowed down by almost 25% since its formation, a clear sign of the presence of dark matter. Continue reading “The Milky Way’s Central bar Spin-Rate is Slowing Down Thanks to Dark Matter”

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Venus’ Surface Tectonics is More Like Pack ice on Earth

Planets move in mysterious ways. Or at least their surfaces do. Earth famously has a system of tectonic plates that drives the movement of its crust. Those plate tectonics are ultimately driven by the flow of material in the mantle – the layer directly below the crust. Now, scientists have found a slightly different deformation mechanic on our nearest sister planet – Venus.

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With Virgin Galactic's launch of Richard Branson in the books, all eyes are on Blue Origin and Jeff Bezos

Richard Bransons’ flight Sunday (July 11) was just the first of two planned billionaire spaceflights this month. Blue Origin boss Jeff Bezos is scheduled to fly on July 20. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/blue-origin-jeff-bezos-launch-follows-virgin-galactic-richard-branson-flight

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M27: The Dumbbell Nebula

What will become of our Sun?The first hint of our Sun’s future was discovered inadvertently in1764.At that time,Charles Messier was compiling a listof diffuse objects not to be confused with comets.The 27th object onMessier’s list, now known asM27 or the Dumbbell Nebula, is aplanetary nebula,one of the brightestplanetary nebulae on the sky – and visibletoward the constellation of the Fox (Vulpecula) with binoculars.

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Richard Branson and Friends Reach the Edge of Space, and Lived to Tell About it!

Early this morning, Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic achieved a major milestone in the development of commercial space travel. Along with a team of specialists, Branson traveled to the edge of space aboard the VSS Unity and made it safely back to Earth. In so doing, Branson and his company have also fired the latest salvo in the ongoing race between the titans of the commercial space industry (aka.

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Does Mercury Have a big Iron Core Because it’s so Close to the Sun’s Magnetic Field?

Magnetic fields are great for lots of things – directing explorers, levitating trains, and containing nuclear fusion reactions are just an example of what these invisible forces can do. Now we can ascribe another feature to magnetic fields – they can give planets a rocky core. Continue reading “Does Mercury Have a big Iron Core Because it’s so Close to the Sun’s Magnetic Field?

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Find the Moon

Where’s the Moon?Somewhere in this image, the Earth’s Moon is hiding. The entire Moon is visible, in its completely full phase, in plain sight.Even the photographer’s keen eye couldn’t find it even though he knew exactly where to look – only thelong exposure of his camera picked it up – barely.

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Satellite Images Can Help Predict When Underwater Volcanos are About to Erupt

Predicting volcanic eruptions is notoriously tricky. In large part this is because volcanos are unique, each with their own quirks and personalities: the lessons learned from studying one volcano may not apply directly to another. Luckily, researchers are getting better at finding warning signs that they can apply broadly. Some of the most well-known are heightened seismic activity, rising temperatures, expanding magma pools, and the release of gases.

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Richard Branson will fly on SpaceShipTwo this weekend. Welcome to the New Space Race!

It’s no secret that the commercial space industry (aka. NewSpace) has become immensely lucrative in recent years, nor the fact that it has become intensely competitive as a result. To illustrate, one needs to look no further than the top three NewSpace companies in the world right now: SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic.

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The Earth’s Atmosphere is Storing Energy Twice as Quickly as it did 15 Years ago

These days it seems you can’t walk through a bookstore without bumping into a book or magazine pointing out the negative consequences of climate change. Everything from the hottest years on record to ruining astronomy can be tied to climate change. Now some new science lays another potential problem at climate change’s feet – the Earth is retaining more than twice as much heat annually as it was 15 years ago.

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After British Columbia’s Record-Breaking Heatwave, Here Come the Wildfires

Every day, there are more indications that show how anthropogenic factors are causing uncomfortable changes in our climate. Here in beautiful British Columbia, this means that wildfires are once again threatening countless acres of forests, communities, and wildlife. By the end of June 2021, more than 40 wildfires were raging across the province, including a rather substantial cluster around the town of Lytton.

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Mercury and the Da Vinci Glow

On July 8th early morning risers saw Mercury near an old Moonlow on the eastern horizon.On that datebright planet, faint glow of lunar night side, and sunlit crescentwere captured in this predawn skyscape from Tenerife’sTeide National Park in the Canary Islands. Never far from the Sun in planet Earth’s sky, thefleeting inner planetshines near its brightest in the morning twilight scene.

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We Might Know why There’s so Little Antimatter in the Universe

Surprising findings sometimes come in small packages. And sometimes those small packages have to be delivered by very big systems. Physicists at MIT made some surprising findings from a very small radioactive molecule that was created in an accelerator at CERN. They believe that, if studied closely enough, these new types of radioactive molecules could shine some light on why there is more matter than anti-matter in the universe.

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Wally Funk From the Mercury 13 Will be Joining Jeff Bezos on his Flight to the Edge of Space

This month, two billionaires will be flying to space aboard their very own commercial launch vehicles. The first to go will be Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who will be a passenger aboard the inaugural crewed flight of the New Shepard on July 20th. Mark Bezos, Jeff’s brother, will be accompanying him on this flight, as will the person who won the auction that wrapped up on June 12th (they bid $28 million for the seat).

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Chinese Astronauts Take Their First Spacewalk Outside the new Station

Spacewalks are a relatively rare occurrence, and they normally draw at least a moderate amount of media coverage. So when a team of Chinese astronauts performed a spacewalk outside of their newly launched space station for the first time, it was bound to attract some notice. The successful walk installed equipment, including cameras, outside of the new Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace”) station.

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M82: Starburst Galaxy with a Superwind

M82 is a starburst galaxywith a superwind.In fact,through ensuing supernova explosions andpowerful winds from massive stars,the burst of star formation in M82is driving a prodigious outflow.Evidence for the superwindfrom the galaxy’s central regionsis clear in sharp telescopic snapshot.The composite image highlights emission fromlong outflow filaments of atomic hydrogen gas in reddish hues.

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There are Probably Many More Earth-Sized Worlds Than Previously Believed

In the past decade, the discovery of extrasolar planets has accelerated immensely. To date, 4,424 exoplanets have been confirmed in 3,280 star systems, with another 7,453 awaiting confirmation. So far, most of these planets have been gas giants, with about 66% being similar to Jupiter or Neptune, while another 30% have been giant rocky planets (aka.

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Multiple Earth-Mass Rogue Planets Have Been Discovered Drifting Through the Milky Way

Last year we reported on how the Roman Space Telescope’s backers hoped it would be able to detect rogue planets using a technique called “microlensing”. Now, a team led by Iain McDonald, then at the University of Manchester, beat them to the punch by finding a few examples of Earth-sized rogue planets using data from an already aging space telescope – Kepler.

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The Streetlights in an Entire County Were Swapped to LEDs. Light Pollution got Worse

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” – this famous paraphrase of Scottish poet Robert Burns sometimes sums up human ingenuity. That is exactly what happened when a county in Washington State decided to replace all of its county-owned streetlights with LEDs at least partially in an effort to combat light pollution.

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Cassini Saw Methane in Enceladus’ Plumes. Scientists Don’t Know How it Could be There Without Life

Even though the Cassini mission at Saturn ended nearly four years ago, data from the spacecraft still keeps scientists busy. And the latest research using Cassini’s wealth of data might be the most enticing yet. Researchers say they’ve detected methane in the plumes of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. The process for how the methane is produced is not known at this time, but the study suggests that the surprisingly large amount of methane found are likely coming from activity at hydrothermal vents present on Enceladus’s interior seafloor.

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Researchers Have Taught a Drone to Recognize and Hunt Down Meteorites Autonomously

Planetary scientists estimate that each year, about 500 meteorites survive the fiery trip through Earth’s atmosphere and fall to our planet’s surface. Most are quite small, and less than 2% of them are ever recovered. While the majority of rocks from space may not be recoverable due to ending up in oceans or remote, inaccessible areas, other meteorite falls are just not witnessed or known about.

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Tales of a ‘Drunken Comet’- Astronomers Detect Alcohol Leaking From 46P/Wirtanen into Space

A close pass of Comet Wirtanen in 2018 offered researchers an unprecedented opportunity. Comets are full of surprises. Not only do they often under- or very occasionally over- perform versus expectations, but they also offer a glimpse of the remnants of the very early solar system. In December 2018, astronomers had an unprecedented opportunity to study one of these relics of the early solar system up close as Comet 46P/Wirtanen sped by Earth just 30 times the Earth-Moon distance (7.

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Perihelion to Aphelion

Aphelion for 2021 occurred on July 5th.That’s the point in Earth’s elliptical orbit when it is farthest from the Sun.Of course, the distance from the Sun doesn’t determine the seasons.Those are governed bythe tilt of Earth’s axis of rotation,so July is still summer in the north and winter in the southernhemisphere.

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After Just 6 Weeks of Construction, Super Heavy is Built and Ready to Move

As usual, the SpaceX South Texas Launch Facility, located near the village of Boca Chica, is the focal point of a lot of attention. Almost two months ago, crews at the facility began working on the first true Super Heavy prototype, the launch stage of SpaceX’s Starship. After six weeks of assembly, SpaceX rolled the Super Heavy Booster 3 (B3) out of the “High Bay” (where it was assembled) and installed it onto the launch pad.

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One of the Brightest Star-Forming Regions in the Milky Way, Seen in Infrared

Certain parts of the galaxy are more magical than others. There are barren wastelands where barely a particle strays through occasionally, and there are fantastical nebulae that can literally light up the sky. But beyond their good looks, those nebulae hold secrets to understanding some of the most important features of any galaxy – stars.

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Satellites can Track Microplastics From Space

Sometimes simple and elegant solutions are all that is needed to solve a problem. One problem that was searching for a solution was how to track microplastics. These small particles of plastics are what results after the sun and friction (such as ocean waves) break down larger plastic objects. They have become a huge problem in the ocean, wreaking havoc on ecosystems and their constituent organisms.

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Flight Through the Orion Nebula in Infrared Light

What would it look like to fly into the Orion Nebula? The exciting dynamic visualizationof the Orion Nebula is based on real astronomical dataand adept movie rendering techniques.Up close and personal with a famous stellar nurserynormally seenfrom 1,500 light-years away, the digitally modeledrepresentation based is based on infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope.

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NASA is Testing out new Composite Materials for Building Lightweight Solar Sail Supports

Space exploration is driven by technology – sometimes literally in the case of propulsion technologies. Solar sails are one of those propulsion technologies that has been getting a lot of attention lately. They have some obvious advantages, such as not requiring fuel, and their ability to last almost indefinitely. But they have some disadvantages too, not the least of which is how difficult they are to deploy in space.

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Potentially More Subsurface Lakes Found on Mars

One of the hardest things to reconcile in science is when new data either complicates or refutes previously findings. It’s even more difficult when those findings were widely publicized and heralded around the community. But that is how science works – the theories must fit the data. So when a team from JPL analyzed data from Mars Express about the Martian South Pole, they realized the findings announced in 2018 about subsurface lakes on Mars might have been more fraught than they had originally thought.

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Astronomers see an Accretion Disk Where Planets are About to Form

Planet formation is notoriously difficult to study. Not only does the process take millions of years, making it impossible to observe in real time, there are myriad factors that play into it, making it difficult to distinguish cause and effect. What we do know is that planets form from features known as protoplanetary disks, which are made up of gas and dust surrounding young stars.

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Could we really terraform Mars?

With its frigid temperatures, remoteness from the sun and general dustiness, changing Mars to be more Earth-like is more challenging than it seems (and it already seems pretty tough). Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/can-we-really-terraform-mars

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Saturn and Six Moons

How many moons does Saturn have?So far 82 have been confirmed, the smallest being only a fractionof a kilometer across.Six of its largest satellites can be seen here in a composite image with 13 short exposure of the bright planet, and13 long exposures of the brightest of its faint moons, taken over two weeks last month.

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Unfortunately, There are Other Viable Explanations for the Subsurface Lakes on Mars

Ever since 1971, when the Mariner 9 probe surveyed the surface of Mars, scientists have theorized that there might be subsurface ice beneath the southern polar ice cap on Mars. In 2004, the ESA’s Mars Express orbiter further confirmed this theory when its Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) instrument detected what looked like water ice at a depth of 3.

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The Face on Mars

Wouldn’t it be fun if clouds were castles? Wouldn’t it be fun if the laundry on the bedroom chair was a superhero? Wouldn’t it be fun if rock mesas on Mars were interplanetary monuments to the human face? Clouds, though, are floating droplets of water and ice. Laundry is cotton, wool, or plastic, woven into garments.

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Bad News, Life Probably can’t Exist on Venus. Good News, it Could be in Jupiter’s Clouds

For decades, scientists engaged in the search for life in the Universe (aka. astrobiology) have focused on searching for life on other Earth-like planets. These included terrestrial (aka. rocky) planets beyond our Solar System (extrasolar planets) and ones here at home. Beyond Earth, Mars is considered to be the most habitable planet next to Earth, and scientists have also theorized that life could exist (in microbial form) in the cloud tops of Venus.

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The Center of the Milky Way is the Most Likely Place to Find a Galactic Civilization

Aim for the Center The Milky Way is 13 BILLION years old. Some of our Galaxy’s oldest stars were born near the beginning of the Universe itself. During all these eons of time, we know at least one technological civilization has been born – US! But if the Galaxy is so ancient, and we know it can create life, why haven’t we heard from anybody else?

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Along the Milky Way

You can’twalk along the Milky Way.Still, under a dark skyyou can explore it.To the eye the pale luminous trail of light arcingthrough the sky on a dark, moonless night does appear to bea path through the heavens.The glowing celestial band is the faint,collectivelight of distant starscut by swaths of obscuring interstellar dust clouds.

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NASA Continues to Try and Rescue Failing Hubble

Things are not looking very good for the Hubble Space Telescope right now. On Sunday, June 13th, the telescope’s payload computer suddenly stopped working, prompting the main computer to put the telescope into safe mode. While the telescope itself and its science instruments remain in working order, science operations have been suspended until the operations team can figure out how to get the payload computer back online.

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A Small Satellite With a Solar Sail Could Catch up With an Interstellar Object

When Oumuamua, the first interstellar object ever observed passing through the Solar System, was discovered in 2017, it exhibited some unexpected properties that left astronomers scratching their heads. Its elongated shape, lack of a coma, and the fact that it changed its trajectory were all surprising, leading to several competing theories about its origin: was it a hydrogen iceberg exhibiting outgassing, or maybe an extraterrestrial solar sail (sorry folks, not likely) on a deep-space journey?

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AR2835: Islands in the Photosphere

Awash in a sea ofincandescent plasmaand anchored in strongmagnetic fields,sunspots are planet-sized dark islands inthe solar photosphere,the bright surface of the Sun.Found in solar active regions, sunspots lookdarkonly because they are slightly cooler though,with temperatures of about 4,000kelvinscompared to 6,000 kelvins for the surrounding solar surface.These sunspots lie in active region AR2835.

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Astronomers Detected a Black Hole-Neutron Star Merger, and Then Another Just 10 Days Later

The interior of a neutron star is perhaps the strangest state of matter in the universe. The material is squeezed so tightly that atoms collapse into a sea of nuclear material. We still aren’t sure whether nucleons maintain their integrity in this state, or whether they dissolve into quark matter. To really understand neutron star matter we need to pull it apart to see how it works and to do that takes a black hole.

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To Take the Best Direct Images of Exoplanets With Space Telescopes, we’re Going to Want Starshades

Between 2021 and 2024, the James Webb (JWST) and Nancy Grace Roman (RST) space telescopes will be launched to space. As the successors to multiple observatories (like Hubble, Kepler, Spitzer, and others), these missions will carry out some of the most ambitious astronomical surveys ever mounted. This will range from the discovery and characterization of extrasolar planets to investigating the mysteries of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

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China Releases Sound and Video of its Rover Landing

Remember the stunning video of the Perseverance rover landing on Mars? The Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) has now released similar video footage from its Zhurong rover, including the sounds recorded as it plummeted through the Martian atmosphere on its way to landing in Utopia Planitia. The CNSA also released sounds of the rover driving off the landing platform.

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Perseverance Selfie with Ingenuity

On sol 46 (April 6, 2021) the Perseverance rover held out arobotic arm to takeits first selfie on Mars.The WATSON camera at the end of the armwas designed to take close-ups of martian rocks andsurface details though, and not a quick snap shot of friends andsmiling faces.In the end,teamworkand weeks of planning on Mars timewas required to program a complex series ofexposures and camera motions to include Perseverance and itssurroundings.

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Russia says SpaceX Starlink satellite and space junk may narrowly miss Progress cargo ship in orbit

The Russian Progress MS-17 cargo ship, which launched toward the International Space Station on Tuesday (June 29), will come dangerously close to a Starlink satellite and a Falcon 9 rocket fragment. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/progress-potential-collisions-starlink-satellite-falcon-9-debris

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Simulation: Formation of the First Stars

How did the first stars form?To help find out, the SPHINX computer simulation of star formation in the very early universe was created, some results of which are shown in the featured video.Time since the Big Bang is shown in millions of years on the upper left. Even 100 million years after the Big Bang, matter was spread too uniformly across the cosmos for stars to be born.

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A Lunar Farside Telescope Could Detect Exoplanets Through Their Magnetospheres

It’s difficult to do radio astronomy on Earth, and it’s getting harder every day. Our everyday reliance on radio technology means that radio interference is a constant challenge, even in remote areas. And for some wavelengths even the Earth’s atmosphere is a problem, absorbing or scattering radio light so that Earth-based telescopes can’t observe these wavelengths well.

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Orion Nebula: The Hubble View

Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination likethe Orion Nebula.Also known asM42,the nebula’s glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of animmense interstellarmolecular cloud only 1,500 light-years away.The Orion Nebula offers one of the best opportunities to study how stars are born partly because it is the nearest largestar-forming region,but also because the nebula’senergetic stars have blown away obscuring gas and dust clouds that would otherwise block our view - providing an intimate look at a range of ongoing stagesof starbirth and evolution.

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A Paper Moon Solar Eclipse

It may look like a paper Moon. Sailing past a canvas Sun. But those are not cardboard clouds. And it’s not make believe. The featured picture of an orange colored sky is real – a digital composite of two exposures of the solar eclipse that occurred earlier this month. The first exposure was taken with a regular telescope that captured an overexposed Sun and an underexposed Moon, while the second image was taken with a solar telescope that captured details of the chromosphere of the background Sun.

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Most Exoplanets won’t Receive Enough Radiation to Support an Earth-Like Biosphere

To date, astronomers have confirmed the existence of 4,422 extrasolar planets in 3,280 star systems, with an additional 7,445 candidates awaiting confirmation. Of these, only a small fraction (165) have been terrestrial (aka. rocky) in nature and comparable in size to Earth – i.e., not “Super-Earths.” And even less have been found that are orbiting within their parent star’s circumsolar habitable zone (HZ).

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LightSail 2 Has Now Been in Space for 2 Years, and Should Last Even Longer Before Re-Entering the Atmosphere

The Planetary Society’s crowdfunded solar-sailing CubeSat, LightSail 2, launched on June 25th 2019, and two years later the mission is still going strong. A pioneering technology demonstration of solar sail capability, LightSail 2 uses the gentle push of photons from the Sun to maneuver and adjust its orbital trajectory. Within months of its launch, LightSail 2 had already been declared a success, breaking new ground and expanding the possibilities for future spacecraft propulsion systems.

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Gravitational-Wave Detector Could Sense Merging Primordial Black Holes With the Mass of a Planet, Millions of Light-Years Away

Gravitational-wave detectors have been a part of astronomy for several years now, and they’ve given us a wealth of information about black holes and what happens when they merge. Gravitational-wave astronomy is still in its infancy, and we are still very limited in the type of gravitational waves we can observe.

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The Dancing Auroras of Saturn

What drives auroras on Saturn?To help find out, scientists have sorted through hundreds of infrared images of Saturn taken by the Cassini spacecraft for other purposes, trying to find enough aurora images to correlate changes and make movies.Once made, some movies clearly show that Saturnian auroras can change not only with the angle of the Sun, but also as the planet rotates.

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Pixels in the Sun

These two panels, composed of video frames madewith a safe solar telescope andhydrogen alpha filter,show remarkably sharp details onthe solar diskand giant prominences along the Sun’s edge on June 6 (top) and June 18.Taken from Beijing, China, they also show a transit of theInternational Space Station and China’s newTiangong Space Stationin silhouette against the bright Sun.

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Virgin Galactic Wins FAA’s OK to Fly Space Passengers: Which Billionaire Will Go First?

Virgin Galactic says it’s received the Federal Aviation Administration’s go-ahead to fly customers on its SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, marking a significant step in a commercial rollout that could also feature dueling space billionaires. The FAA’s clearance came in the form of an update to Virgin Galactic’s five-year-old commercial space transportation operator license, the company said in a news release.

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Aliens in 2,034 Nearby Star Systems Could use the Transit Method to see Earth

For centuries, human beings have speculated about the existence of planetary systems (much like our own) orbiting other stars. However, it has only been in the past few decades that scientists have been able to detect and study these distant worlds. To date, astronomers have used various methods to confirm the existence of 4,422 extrasolar planets in 3,280 star systems, with an additional 7,445 candidates awaiting confirmation.

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Long-Awaited UFO Report Opens the Door Wider to Sharing Strange Aerial Sightings

After months of anticipation, U.S. intelligence experts have released a report citing 18 incidents since 2004 in which unidentified flying objects — or unidentified aerial phenomena, to use the Pentagon’s term — appeared to demonstrate breakthrough technologies. The nine-page, unclassified version of the report doesn’t describe the incidents in detail, and doesn’t attribute them to aliens.

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Could Life Exist in the Atmosphere of a sub-Neptune Planet?

Earth is perfectly suited for organic life. It stands to reason then that similar worlds orbiting distant stars might also be rich with life. But proving it will be a challenge. One of the better ways to discover extraterrestrial life will be to study the atmospheres of inhabited exoplanets, but Earth is fairly small for a planet and has a thin atmosphere compared to larger worlds.

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There’s a Problem With Hubble, and NASA Hasn’t Been Able to fix it yet

For over thirty years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been in continuous operation in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and revealing never-before-seen aspects of the Universe. In addition to capturing breathtaking images of our Solar System and discovering extrasolar planets, Hubble also probed the deepest reaches of time and space, causing astrophysicists to revise many of their previously-held theories about the cosmos.

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Andromeda in a Single Shot

How far can you see?TheAndromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years away, is the most distantobject easily seen by the unaided eye.Other denizens of the night sky, like stars, clusters, and nebulae,are typically hundreds to thousands of light-years distant.That’s far beyond the Solar System but well withinour own Milky Way Galaxy.Also known as M31, the external galaxy posesdirectly above a chimney in this well-planneddeep night skyscapefrom an old mine in southern Portugal.

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A Newly-Discovered (Almost) Dwarf Planet Will Come Surprisingly Close in 2031

It’s good to remember how little we know about the outer solar system. Humans only really began observing it within the past 100 years, and given the constraints on that observations there are still plenty of things we don’t know about. For example, researchers recently found an object almost the size of a dwarf planet that is inbound to the inner solar system, with an estimated orbital period of over 2 million years, more than six the lifetime of the modern human species.

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This is why Martian Colonists are Going to Wish They had an Atmosphere Above Them

There will be all sorts of risks for any future colonists on Mars, such as extreme weather and temperatures, radiation, and the human physiological problems associated with living in with decreased gravity. But another issue means colonists on Mars will have to be on a constant lookout above their heads. Continue reading “This is why Martian Colonists are Going to Wish They had an Atmosphere Above Them”

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Messier 99

Grand designspiral galaxy Messier 99looks majestic on a truly cosmic scale.This recently processedfull galaxy portraitstretches over 70,000 light-years across M99.The sharp view is a combination of ultraviolet, visible,and infrared image data from the Hubble Space Telescope.About 50 million light-years distant toward the well-groomedconstellation Coma Bernices, the face-on spiral is amember of the nearbyVirgo Galaxy Cluster.

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Space Perspective Puts Tickets for Stratospheric Balloon Tours on Sale

Florida-based Space Perspective is opening its ticket window for 20-mile-high balloon flights that provide an astronaut’s-eye view of Earth. The list price for a six-hour trip up into the stratosphere and back is $125,000. Flights are scheduled to begin as soon as late 2024. Space Perspective’s co-CEOs, Taber MacCallum and Jane Poynter, unveiled the outlines of their plan for trips in a balloon-borne capsule called Spaceship Neptune a year ago.

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NASA is Finally Sending a Lunar Lander to the Moon’s far Side

The far side of the moon has been getting more popular than a Pink Floyd album lately. A variety of missions are planned to visit the previously overlooked side opposite Earth. Recently NASA announced a few more, including two landers which will measure properties of the Moon’s interior. Continue reading “NASA is Finally Sending a Lunar Lander to the Moon’s far Side”

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STARFORGE: A Star Formation Simulation

How do stars form? Most form in giant molecular clouds located in the central disk of a galaxy. The process is started, influenced, and limited by the stellar winds, jets, high energy starlight, and supernova explosions of previously existing stars.The featured video shows these complex interactions as computed by the STARFORGE simulation of a gas cloud 20,000 times the mass of our Sun.

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Astrobiologists Detect a Signature of Life Remotely. Don’t get too Excited, Though, it was With a Helicopter Here on Earth

Chirality is a word normally found in biological textbooks that will occasionally pop up in the astronomy community, usually when discussing potential biosignatures. Typically the term is explained by analogy with left and right hands – how the molecules are curved in one specific way or another, similarly to how human hands are formed either as left or right.

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Space Telescopes Could Provide Next-Level Images of Black Hole Event Horizons

Back in 2019, the world was treated to the first ever image of a black hole, which was originally captured in 2017. The feat was widely heralded as a leap forward for astrophysics, supporting Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Now a team led by the Radboud University proposes sending instruments into space to estimate black hole parameters more accurately by an order of magnitude.

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Teeny Tiny Space Telescope has Taken Thousands of Pictures of Both Earth and Space

A new nanosat has been quietly snapping over 4500 pictures of the Earth and the sky after its launch on May 15th. Rocketed into orbit on a Falcon 9, the nanosat, known as GEOStare2, actually contains two different telescopes – one focuses on a wide field of view while the other has a much narrower field of view but much higher resolution.

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HD 163296: Jet from a Star in Formation

How are jets created during star formation?No one is sure, although recent images of the young star system HD 163296 are quite illuminating.The central star in the featured image is still forming but seen already surrounded by arotating disk and anoutward moving jet.The disk is shown in radio waves taken by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, and show gaps likely created by the gravity of very-young planets.

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Supermassive Black Hole Winds Were Already Blowing Less Than a Billion Years After the Big Bang

At the heart of most galaxies is a supermassive black hole. These beasts of gravity can play a crucial role in the formation and evolution of their galaxy. But astronomers still don’t fully understand when the influence of black holes becomes significant. Did large black holes form early in the universe, causing galaxies to form around them?

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Astronomers saw the Same Supernova Three Times Thanks to Gravitational Lensing. And in Twenty Years They Think They’ll see it one More Time

It is hard for humans to wrap their heads around the fact that there are galaxies so far away that the light coming from them can be warped in a way that they actually experience a type of time delay. But that is exactly what is happening with extreme forms of gravitational lensing, such as those that give us the beautiful images of Einstein rings.

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The Tadpole Galaxy from Hubble

Why does this galaxy have such a long tail? In this stunning vista, based on image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive,distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiralgalaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy.The cosmic tadpole is a mere 420 million light-years distant toward thenorthern constellation of the Dragon (Draco).

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Apollo 17 Astronauts Brought Home Samples From the Oldest Impact Crater on the Moon

Internal geological processes on the moon are almost non-existent. However, when it gets smacked by a space rock, its surface can change dramatically. Debris from that impact can also travel over large distances, transplanting material from one impact site hundreds of kilometers away, where it can remain untouched in its inert environment for billions of years.

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Astronomers Find a Blinking Star Near the Center of the Milky Way

In this week’s edition of new unexplained astronomical phenomena, a team of astronomers led by Dr. Leigh Smith from Cambridge found a star 100 times larger than our sun that nearly disappears from the sky every few decades. They also have no idea why it does so. Continue reading “Astronomers Find a Blinking Star Near the Center of the Milky Way”

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Sunrise Solstice over Stonehenge

Today the Sun reaches its northernmost point in planet Earth’s sky. Called a solstice, many cultures mark this date as a change of seasons – from spring to summer inEarth’s Northern Hemisphere and from fall towinter in Earth’s Southern Hemisphere. Precisely, the single time of solstice occurs today for some partsof the world, but tomorrow for other regions.

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Northern Summer Twilight

Nights grow shorter anddays grow longer as the summer solsticeapproaches in the north.Usually seen at high latitudes in summer months,noctilucent or night shining cloudsbegin to make their appearance. Drifting neartheedge of spaceabout 80 kilometers above the Earth’s surface,these icy clouds were still reflecting the sunlight on June 14.Though the Sun wasbelow the horizon as seennorth of Forrest, Manitoba, Canada,they were caught in a single exposure of a near midnight twilight sky.

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A New Technique for “Seeing” Exoplanet Surfaces Based on the Content of their Atmospheres

In November of 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JMST) will make its long-awaited journey to space. This next-generation observatory will observe the cosmos using its advanced infrared suite and reveal many never-before-seen things. By 2024, it will be joined the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST), the successor to the Hubble mission that will have 100 times Hubble’s field of view and faster observing time.

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Devil Horns from a Ring of Fire

Atmospheric refractionflattened the solar disk and distortedits appearance in this telescopic view of an Atlantic sunriseon June 10.From Belmar, New Jersey on the US east coast,the scene wasrecorded at New Moonduring this season’s annular solar eclipse.The Moon in partial silhouette gives the rising Sunits crescent shape reminding some of the horns of the devil(or maybe a flying canoe …).

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The Largest Rotating Objects in the Universe: Galactic Filaments Hundreds of Millions of Light-Years Long

We’ve known for a while about the large-scale structure of the Universe. Galaxies reside in filaments hundreds of millions of light-years long, on a backbone of dark matter. And, where those filaments meet, there are galaxy clusters. Between them are massive voids, where galaxies are sparse. Now a team of astronomers in Germany and their colleagues in China and Estonia have made an intriguing discovery.

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NGC 6888: The Crescent Nebula

NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is aabout 25 light-years acrossblown by windsfrom its central, bright, massive star.A triumvirate of astroimagers( Joe,Glenn,Russell)created this sharp portraitof the cosmic bubble.Their telescopic collaborationcollected over 30 hours of narrow band image data isolating light from hydrogenand oxygen atoms.The oxygen atoms produce the blue-green hue that seems to enshroudthe detailed folds and filaments.

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Catch New Galactic Nova Herculis 2021 in Hercules the Hero

Now’s the time to catch Nova Herculis 2021, before it fades from view. …And then, there were two. Fresh off of the eruption of Nova Cassiopeiae 2021 early this year, another galactic nova made itself known earlier this past weekend, as a ‘new star’ or nova flirted with naked eye visibility in the constellation Hercules the Hero on its border with Aquila the Eagle.

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Scorpius Enhanced

If Scorpius looked this good to the unaided eye, humans might remember it better. Scorpius more typically appears as a few bright stars in a well-known but rarely pointed out zodiacal constellation.To get a spectacular image like this, though, one needs a good camera, a dark sky, and some sophisticated image processing.

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CHIME Detected Over 500 Fast Radio Burst in its First Year, Providing new Clues to What’s Causing Them

Much like Dark Matter and Dark Energy, Fast Radio Burst (FRBs) are one of those crazy cosmic phenomena that continue to mystify astronomers. These incredibly bright flashes register only in the radio band of the electromagnetic spectrum, occur suddenly, and last only a few milliseconds before vanishing without a trace. As a result, observing them with a radio telescope is rather challenging and requires extremely precise timing.

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Iridescent Clouds on Mars Seen by Curiosity

Laying on a grassy field staring at the cloud formations in the sky and coming up with harebrained ideas about their shapes is a common feature in childhood summers – at least as they’re portrayed in media. Someday that image might translate to a child laying on a sandy or rocky outcropping, looking up at the sky seeing iridescent, shimmering clouds in the sky.

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Zhurong: New Rover on Mars

There’s a new rover on Mars.In mid-May, China’s Tianwen-1 mission delivered the Zhurong rover onto the red planet. As Mars means Planet of Fire in Chinese, the Zhurong rover’s name means, roughly, God of Fire in Chinese mythology. Zhurong landed in northern Utopia Planitia, the largest known impact basin in the Solar System, and an area reported to have much underground ice.

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Astronomers Have Found the Perfect Exoplanet to Study Another World’s Atmosphere

TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has found a new planet, and the discovery of this sub-Neptune exoplanet has scientists excited about atmospheres. The combination of the planet’s size, its thick atmosphere, and its orbit around a small M-class star close to Earth provides researchers with an opportunity to learn more about exoplanet atmospheres.

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Ganymede from Juno

What does the largest moon in the Solar System look like? Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, larger than even Mercury and Pluto, has an icy surface speckled with bright young craters overlying a mixture of older, darker, more cratered terrain laced with grooves and ridges. The cause of the grooved terrain remains a topic of research, with a leading hypothesis relating it to shifting ice plates.

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Asteroid 16 Psyche Might Not be a Solid Chunk of Metal After All, but Another Rubble Pile

Asteroid 16 Psyche, often sensationally dubbed the 10,000 quadrillion dollar asteroid due to its composition of valuable metals, may not be entirely what it seems. A new paper out of the University of Arizona suggests that the asteroid is possibly more porous, and less metallic, than previous studies indicated. It still certainly has a mostly metallic structure, but its composition is more complex – and that’s good news.

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How To Search the Chemical Makeup of Exoplanet Atmospheres for Hints at Their History

Author’s note – this article was written with Dr. Vincent Kofman, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), and the lead author on the research it discusses. Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered in the recent decades. Planet hunters like TESS and Kepler, as well as numerous ground-based efforts, have pushed the field and we are starting to get a total number of planets that will allow us to perform effective statistical analysis on some of them.

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What’s the Connection Between the Chemistry of a Star and the Formation of its Planets?

Scientists seem to have come up with a new parlor game – how many ways can we potentially detect exoplanets? The two most common methods, the transit method and the Doppler method, each have their own problems. Alternative methods are starting to sprout up, and a new one was recently proposed by Jacob Nibauer, an undergraduate student in the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.

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It’s Time for Perseverance to get to Work

Given all of the news surrounding the landing and first few months of operation of the Perseverance rover on Mars, it might be surprising that its actual science mission hasn’t even started yet. That changed on June 1st when the rover officially kicked off its first science mission by leaving its landing site.

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A Supercell Thunderstorm Over Texas

Is that a cloud or an alien spaceship? It’s an unusual and sometimes dangerous type of thunderstorm cloud called a supercell.Supercells may spawn damaging tornados, hail, downbursts of air, or drenching rain. Or they may just look impressive.A supercell harbors a mesocyclone – a rising column of air surrounded by drafts of falling air.

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Relativity Space Gets a Huge Investment to Take on SpaceX With Reusable Rockets

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and that competition is a great way to foster progress and innovation. If these truisms are to be believed, then the NewSpace industry is destined to benefit from the presence of Relativity Space, a commercial space company based in Los Angeles. At the same time, SpaceX founder Elon Musk should be flattered that Tim Ellis and Jordan Noone (founders of Relativity Space) are following his example.

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What Mission Could Detect Oceans at Uranus’ Moons?

Exploration of ocean worlds has become a hot topic of late, primarily due to their role as a potential harbor for alien life. Moons that have confirmed subsurface oceans garner much of the attention, such as Enceladus and Europa. But they may not be the only ones. Uranus’ larger moons – Miranda, Ariel, and Umbriel could potentially also have subsurface oceans even farther out into the solar system.

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ESA is Joining NASA With Their own Mission to Venus

It’s an exciting time to be a Venus watcher. Our sister planet, which has been the target of only one mission since the 1980s, is now the focus of not one, not two, but three missions from NASA and ESA. Combined, they promise to give the closest look ever at the Morning Star, and some of the processes that might have made such a similar world so different from our own.

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White Dwarf Measured Before it Exploded as a Supernova

Type Ia supernovae are an important tool for modern astronomy. They are thought to occur when a white dwarf star captures mass beyond the Chandrasekhar limit, triggering a cataclysmic explosion. Because that limit is the same for all white dwarfs, Type Ia supernovae all have about the same maximum brightness. Thus, they can be used as standard candles to determine galactic distances.

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Eclipse on the Water

Eclipses tend to come in pairs.Twice a year, during an eclipse season that lastsabout 34 days,Sun, Moon, and Earth can nearly align.Then the full and newphases of the Moonseparated by just over 14 days create a lunar and a solar eclipse.Often partial eclipses are part of any eclipse season.But sometimes the alignment at both new moon and full moonphases during a single eclipse season is close enoughto produce a pair of both total (or a total and an annular)lunar and solar eclipses.

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Supernova Observed by Astronomers in 1181 Could Have Been a Rare Type 1ax That Leaves Behind a “Zombie Star” Remnant

In 1181 CE, Chinese and Japanese astronomers noticed a “guest star” as bright as Saturn briefly appearing in their night sky. In the thousand years since, astronomers have not been able to pinpoint the origins of that event. New observations have revealed that the “guest star” was a supernova, and a strange one at that.

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The Moons of Rogue Planets Could Have Liquid Surface Water and Thick Atmospheres. They Could be Habitable

The search for life on exoplanets takes a fairly conservative approach. It focuses on life that is similar to that of Earth. Sure, it’s quite possible that life comes in many exotic forms, and scientists have speculated about all the strange forms life might take, but the simple fact is that Earth life is the only form we currently understand.

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Eclipse Flyby

On June 10 a New Moonpassed in front of the Sun.In silhouette only two days afterreaching apogee,the most distant point in its elliptical orbit,the Moon’s small apparent size helped create an annular solar eclipse.The brief but spectacular annular phase of the eclipseshows a bright solar disk as a ring of firewhen viewed along its narrow, northerly shadow track across planetEarth.

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Sending a Spacecraft to Another Star Will Require a Million Lasers Working Together

In 2016, Russian-American billionaire Yuri Milner founded Breakthrough Initiatives, a non-profit organization dedicated to investigating some of the most enduring mysteries of the Universe. Chief among their scientific efforts is Breakthrough Starshot, a proof-of-concept prototype that combines a lightsail, a nanocraft, and directed energy (aka. laser) propulsion to create a spacecraft capable of reaching the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) in our lifetimes.

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Partial Solar Eclipse Images from Around the World

People across the northern hemisphere looked up today – taking the correct precautions, of course – and were treated to a partial solar eclipse. The partial eclipse covered a region thousands of kilometres wide across most of Europe, northern Asia and northeastern North America. An annular or “ring of fire” solar eclipse was visible to some parts of Greenland, Northern Russia, and Canada.

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Astronomers Have Tracked Down the Source of High Energy Cosmic Rays to Regions Within the Milky Way Itself

Using a new observatory, a team of Chinese astronomers have found over a dozen sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. And those sources aren’t from some distant, exotic corner of the cosmos. They come from our own backyard. Continue reading “Astronomers Have Tracked Down the Source of High Energy Cosmic Rays to Regions Within the Milky Way Itself”

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Circular Sun Halo

Want to see a ring around the Sun?It’s easy to doin daytime skies around the world.Created by randomly oriented ice crystals in thin high cirrus clouds,circular 22 degree halos are visible much more often than rainbows.This one wascaptured by smart phonephotographyon May 29 near Rome, Italy.Carefullyblocking the Sun,for example with a finger tip,is usually all that it takes to revealthe common bright halo ring.

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Conceptual Design for a Lunar Habitat

Between now and the end of this decade, multiple space agencies plan to send astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. But whereas Apollo was a “footprints and flags” affair, the current proposals for lunar exploration call for the creation of infrastructure that allow for a sustained human presence there.

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A Total Lunar Eclipse Corona

This moon appears multiply strange. This moon was a full moon, specifically called a Flower Moon at this time of the year. But that didn’t make it strange – full moons occur once a month (moon-th). This moon was a supermoon, meaning that it reached its full phase near its closest approach to the Earth in its slightly elliptical orbit.

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Whether They’re Stellar-Mass or Supermassive, Black Holes Behave Pretty Much the Same Way

Astronomers recently caught a supermassive black hole gulp down a star. It flared in exactly the same way as its smaller cousins do when those black holes have a snack. It just took longer and was a million times brighter. Continue reading “Whether They’re Stellar-Mass or Supermassive, Black Holes Behave Pretty Much the Same Way”

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The Universe is Constantly Bathing you in Radiation. Incredibly, This Could be Used for Medical Diagnosis

Walk into any modern hospital, and you’ll find a medical imaging department. Medical imaging uses x-rays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and other arcane-sounding methods like positron emission tomography (PET) to image the body’s interior for analysis and diagnosis. To a non-specialist, these techniques can sound almost otherwordly. But in one way or another, these technologies rely on natural phenomena, including radiation, to do their thing.

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A Face in the Clouds of Jupiter from Juno

What do you see in the clouds of Jupiter?On the largest scale, circling the planet, Jupiter has alternating light zones and reddish-brown belts.Rising zone gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, usually swirls around regions of high pressure.Conversely, falling belt gas usually whirls around regions of low pressure, like cyclones and hurricanes on Earth.

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Planets may Start Forming Before the Star is Even Finished

Planets form from the accumulation of countless grains of dust swirling around young stars. New computer simulations have found that planets begin forming earlier than previously thought, when a planet’s star hasn’t even finished forming yet. Continue reading “Planets may Start Forming Before the Star is Even Finished” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Scientist sees deep meaning in black holes after Event Horizon Telescope’s triumph

Why are black holes so alluring? You could cite plenty of reasons: They’re matter-gobbling monsters, making them the perfect plot device for a Disney movie. They warp spacetime, demonstrating weird implications of general relativity. They’re so massive that inside a boundary known as the event horizon, nothing — not even light — can escape its gravitational grip.

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Time to Update Your Desktop Wallpaper With This Perfect Spiral Galaxy: NGC 691

In 1990, the field of astronomy was forever changed with the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. While it was not the first space observatory, its unprecedented resolution and versatility allowed for the deepest and most detailed images of the Universe ever taken. The latest image to be released by the mission features the spiral galaxy NGC 691, which was captured in amazing detail by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

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A Bright Nova in Cassiopeia

What’s that new spot of light in Cassiopeia?A nova. Although novas occur frequently throughout the universe, this nova, known as Nova Cas 2021 or V1405 Cas, became so unusually bright in the skies of Earth last month that it was visible to the unaided eye. Nova Cas 2021 first brightened in mid-March but then, unexpectedly,became even brighter in mid-May and remained quite bright for about a week.

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New Technique to Search for Life, Whether or not it’s Similar to Earth Life

In 1960, the first survey dedicated to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) was mounted at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. This was Project Ozma, which was the brainchild of famed astronomer and SETI pioneer Frank Drake (for whom the Drake Equation is named). Since then, the collective efforts to find evidence of life beyond Earth have coalesced to create a new field of study known as astrobiology.

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Next up, Juno has Ganymede in its Sights

NASA’s Juno mission is set for a close encounter with the Solar System’s largest moon, Ganymede, on Monday. This will be the first flyby of the icy world since the Galileo and Cassini spacecraft jointly observed the moon in 2000. New Horizons also got a quick snap of Ganymede as it slingshotted around Jupiter on its way out to Pluto in 2007, but from a distance of 3.

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A Distorted Sunrise Eclipse

Yes, but have you ever seen a sunrise like this? Here, after initial cloudiness, the Sun appeared to rise in two pieces and during partial eclipse, causing the photographer to describe it as the most stunning sunrise of his life. The dark circle near the top of the atmospherically-reddened Sun is the Moon – but so is the dark peak just below it.

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What Would It Take To See Artificial Lights at Proxima Centauri B?

Is there an alien civilization next door? It’s…possible(ish). In late 2020, we discovered a signal from the direction of Proxima Centauri (not necessarily from Proxima Centauri), our closest neighbour star. Named BLC- 1 by project Break Through Listen, the signal is still being analyzed to ensure it isn’t simply an echo of our own civilization – typically what they turn out to be.

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The Shining Clouds of Mars

The weathered and layered face ofMount Mercou looms in the foregroundof this mosaic from the Curiosity Mars rover’s Mast Camera.Made up of 21 individual images the scene was recordedjust after sunset on March 19, the 3,063rd martian day of Curiosity’son going exploration of the Red Planet.In themartian twilight high altitude cloudsstill shine above, reflecting the light from the Sun below the local horizonlike thenoctilucent clouds of planet Earth.

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New Mosaic Shows the Galactic Core From Opposite Sides of the Electromagnetic Spectrum

The core of the Milky Way Galaxy (aka. Galactic Center), the region around which the rest of the galaxy revolves, is a strange and mysterious place. It is here that the Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) that powers the compact radio source known as Sagittarius A* is located. It is also the most compact region in the galaxy, with an estimated 10 million stars within 3.

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What Comes After Photographing a Black Hole's Event Horizon? Could we see the Photon Ring?

In 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) gave us the first direct image of a black hole. On one hand, the image it produced was rather unimpressive. Just a circular blur of light surrounding a dark central region. On the other hand, subtle characteristics of the image hold tremendous information about the size and rotation of the black hole.

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Another Delay for Webb, But This Time it’s Because of the Rocket, Not the Telescope

Officials from NASA and ESA this acknowledged the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope will very likely be delayed from the end of October to at least mid-November, 2021. As we reported last month, the usually reliable Ariane 5 has experienced problems on two previous launches where unexpected vehicle accelerations occurred when the fairing separated from the rocket.

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Blood Monster Moon

On May 26, theFull Flower Moonwas caught in this single exposure as itemerged from Earth’s shadowand morning twilight began to wash overthe western sky.Posing close to the horizon near the end of totality,an eclipsed lunar disk is framed againstbare oak trees at Pinnacles National Parkin central California.The Earth’s shadow isn’t completely dark though.

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Millions of Stars in Omega Centauri

Globular star clusterOmega Centauri,also known as NGC 5139, is some 15,000 light-years away.The cluster is packed with about 10 millionstars much older than the Sun within a volume about 150 light-years indiameter.It’s the largest and brightest of 200 or so knownglobularclusters that roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy.Though most star clusters consist of stars with the same age andcomposition, the enigmatic Omega Cen exhibits the presence ofdifferentstellar populations with a spread of ages and chemical abundances.

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Lunar Rovers! Transform and Roll Out!

A number of missions are destined for the Moon before this decade is over. In addition to the Artemis Program, the European Space Agency (ESA), the China National Space Agency (CNSA), Roscosmos, and other space agencies have some ambitious plans of their own. These include sending robotic missions to characterize the local environment, scout out resources, and pave the way for permanent human outposts.

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The Galactic Center in Stars, Gas, and Magnetism

What’s going on near the center of our galaxy?To help find out, a newly detailed panorama has been composed that explores regions just above and below the galactic plane in radio and X-ray light. X-ray light taken by the orbiting Chandra Observatory is shown in orange (hot), green (hotter), and purple (hottest) and superposed with a highly detailed image in radio waves, shown in gray, acquired by the MeerKAT array.

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Starlink over Orion

What are those streaks across Orion?Most are reflections of sunlight from numerous Earth-orbiting Starlink satellites.Appearing by eye as a series of successive points floating across a twilight sky, the increasing number of SpaceX Starlink communication satellites are causing concern among many astronomers.On the positive side, Starlink and similar constellations make the post-sunset sky more dynamic, satellite-based global communications faster, and help provide digital services to currently underserved rural areas.

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JAXA Using Water Bottle Technology for Sample-Return Missions From the ISS

The International Space Station (ISS) is not only the largest and most sophisticated orbiting research facility ever built, it is arguably the most important research facility we have. With its cutting-edge facilities and microgravity environment, the ISS is able to conduct lucrative experiments that are leading to advances in astrobiology, astronomy, medicine, biology, space weather and meteorology, and materials science.

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Long-Range Photo of Ingenuity Taken by Perseverance’s SuperCam Instrument

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter is a stunning achievement of engineering, design, and, well, ingenuity. The dual-rotor craft can be seen taking off and landing in this remarkable video, taken by the Mastcam-Z, an imager aboard the Perseverance Mars Rover. Mastcam-Z is a tremendous scientific instrument, but this article’s truly outstanding lead image was taken with Perseverance’s SuperCam instrument.

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There Might be Volcanoes at the Bottom of Europa’s sub-ice Oceans

In about three years, NASA plans to launch a robotic orbiter that will study Jupiter’s mysterious moon Europa. It’s called the Europa Clipper mission, which will spend four years orbiting Europa to learn more about its ice sheet, interior structure, chemical composition, and plume activity. In the process, NASA hopes to find evidence that will help resolve the ongoing debate as to whether or not Europa harbors life in its interior.

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Mimas: Small Moon with a Big Crater

Whatever hit Mimas nearly destroyed it. What remains is one of thelargest impact craters on one ofSaturn’s smallest round moons. Analysis indicates that a slightly larger impact would have destroyed Mimas entirely. The huge crater, namedHerschel after the 1789 discoverer of Mimas,Sir William Herschel, spans about 130 kilometers and isfeatured here.

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Zhurong is Rolling on Mars

On May 22nd, 2021, the Zhurong rover – part of Tianwen-1, China’s first mission to Mars – descended from its lander and drove on the Martian surface for the first time. According to the mission’s official social media account, the rover drove down its descent ramp from the Tianwen-1 lander at 10:40 a.

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Teeny Tiny CubeSats Could Have Deployable Mirrors Like James Webb

When you think of a space telescope, you probably think of ones such as the Hubble, which probes deep space using precision optics. But optical space telescopes are also pointed at Earth, giving us detailed views of everything from weather, to traffic patterns, to the movement of military troops. While Earth-focused telescopes are extremely useful, they can also be fairly large and expensive to launch into space.

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Is the Hubble constant not…Constant?

Cosmologists have been struggling to understand an apparent tension in their measurements of the present-day expansion rate of the universe, known as the Hubble constant. Observations of the early cosmos – mostly the cosmic microwave background – point to a significantly lower Hubble constant than the value obtained through observations of the late universe, primarily from supernovae.

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Dark Energy Survey is out. 29 Papers Covering 226 Million Galaxies Across 7 Billion Light-Years of Space

Cosmology is now stranger to large scale surveys. The discipline prides itself on data collection, and when the data it is collecting is about galaxies that are billions of years old its easy to see why more data would be better. Now, with a flurry of 29 new papers, the partial results from the largest cosmological survey ever – the Dark Energy Survey (DES) – have been released.

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Exoplanet Surveys are Leaning Towards the Possibility That our Solar System is… Normal

One of the unspoken caveats of most exoplanet discovery missions is that they only operate for a few years. Such a short observing window means there are planets with longer orbital periods, usually further out from the star, that those surveys would completely miss. Knowing this would be a problem, a team of astronomers arranged the California Legacy Survey three decades ago in order to monitor as many stars as possible for as long a time as possible.

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Self-Driving Lunar Rovers for Astronaut Road Trips on the Moon

What happens when you cross one of the world’s largest defense contractors with one of the world’s largest automobile manufacturers? Apparently, you get an electrically powered autonomous lunar rover. At least that is the fruit of a new collaboration between Lockheed Martin (LM) and General Motors (GM). Continue reading “Self-Driving Lunar Rovers for Astronaut Road Trips on the Moon”

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A Dark Matter map of our Local Cosmic Neighborhood

Since it was first theorized in the 1970s, astrophysicists and cosmologists have done their best to resolve the mystery that is Dark Matter. This invisible mass is believed to make up 85% of the matter in the Universe and accounts for 27% of its mass-energy density. But more than that, it also provides the large-scale skeletal structure of the Universe (the cosmic web), which dictates the motions of galaxies and material because of its gravitational influence.

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Aurora over Clouds

Auroras usually occur high above the clouds. The auroral glow is created when fast-moving particles ejected from the Sun impact the Earth’s magnetosphere, from which charged particles spiral along the Earth’s magnetic field to strike atoms and molecules high in the Earth’s atmosphere. An oxygen atom, for example, will glow in the green light commonly emitted by an aurora after being energized by such a collision.

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Lunar Dust and Duct Tape

Why is the Moon so dusty?On Earth, rocks are weathered by wind and water, creating soil and sand.On the Moon, the history of constant micrometeorite bombardmenthas blasted away at the rocky surface creating a layer of powderylunar soil or regolith. For the Apollo astronauts and their equipment,the pervasive, fine,gritty dust was definitely a problem.

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Total Lunar Eclipse from Sydney

The reddened shadow of planet Earthplays across the lunardisk in this telescopic image taken on May 26 nearSydney, New South Wales, Australia.On that crisp, clear autumn night a Perigee Full Moonslid through the northern edge of the shadow’sdark central umbra.Shortfor a lunar eclipse,its total phaselasted only about 14 minutes.The Earth’s shadow was not completely dark though.

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Bad weather on the 'moon' puts the HI-SEAS crew into 'low power mode' — Commander's report: lunar day 6

Commander Musilova shares how the Selene V crew was able to vent their disappointment from their moonwalks being canceled, their confinement and their low power existence in the HI-SEAS habitat. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/hi-seas-selene-v-moon-analog-mission-commander-report-2

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Move Over Artemis Accords! Behold the Lunar Governance Report and EAGLE Manifesto!

In July 1999, the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) was created with the purpose of representing the “Space Generation” to the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA). For this non-governmental organization and professional network, this would consist of bringing the “views of students and young space professionals to the United Nations (UN), space industry and other organizations”.

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Mid Eclipse and Milky Way

May’s perigee Full Moonslid through Earth’s shadow yesterdayentertaining night skygazers in regionsaround the Pacific.Seen from western North America, itsinks toward the rugged Sierra Nevada mountain range in thistime-lapse series of the total lunar eclipse.Low on the western horizon the Moon was captured atmid-eclipse with two separate exposures.Combined they reveal theeclipsed Moon’s reddened coloragainst the dark night skyand the diffuse starlight band of the Milky Way.

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The Elements for Life Depend on Both how and Where a Planet Forms

In the past few decades, the number of planets discovered beyond our Solar System has grown into the thousands. At present, 4,389 exoplanets have been confirmed in 3,260 systems, with another 5,941 candidates awaiting confirmation. Thanks to numerous follow-up observations and studies, scientists have learned a great deal about the types of planets that exist in our Universe, how planets form, and how they evolve.

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What Happened Moments After the Big Bang?

It’s often said that in its earliest moments the universe was in a hot, dense state. While that’s a reasonably accurate description, it’s also quite vague. What exactly was it that was hot and dense, and what state was it in? Answering that question takes both complex theoretical modeling and high-energy experiments in particle physics.

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The Outburst Clouds of Star AG Car

What created these unusual clouds? At the center of this 2021 Hubble image sits AG Carinae, a supergiant star located about 20,000 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. The star’s emitted power is over a million times that of the Sun, making AG Carinae one of the most luminous stars in our Milky Way galaxy.

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The Moon During a Total Lunar Eclipse

How does the Moon’s appearance change during a total lunar eclipse?The featured time-lapse video was digitally processed to keep the Moon bright and centered during the 5-hour eclipse of 2018 January 31. At first the full moon is visible because only a full moon can undergo a lunar eclipse. Stars move by in the background because the Moon orbits the Earth during the eclipse.

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Hubble Has Tracked Down the Source of 5 Different Fast Radio Bursts

In a new survey, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have managed to pinpoint the location of several Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). FRBs are powerful jets of energy that, until recently, had mysterious, unknown origins. The research team, which includes University of California Santa Cruz’ Alexandra Manning and Sunil Simha, as well as Northwestern University’s Wen-fai Fong, performed a survey of eight FRBs, from which they were able to determine that five of them originated from a spiral arm in their host galaxies.

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This is Currently the World’s Largest Iceberg

A gigantic chunk of ice recently broke off from an ice shelf in Antarctica, and is currently the world’s largest iceberg. The iceberg, dubbed A-76, measures around 4,320 square km (1,670 square miles) in size. At 170 km (106 miles) in length and 25 km (15 miles) wide, the iceberg is slightly larger than the Spanish island of Majorca, and bigger than the state of Rhode Island in the US.

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Lightning Eclipse from the Planet of the Goats

Thunderstorms almost spoiled this view of the spectacular 2011 June 15 total lunar eclipse.Instead, storm clouds parted for 10 minutes during thetotal eclipse phaseand lightning boltscontributed to the dramatic sky.Captured with a 30-second exposure the scene also inspired one of the more memorable titles (thanks to the astrophotographer)in APOD’s now 25-year history.

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It Could be Possible to see Gravitational Wave Lenses

Gravitational-wave astronomy is very different from that of electromagnetic light. While gravitational waves are faint and difficult to detect, they also pass through matter with little effect. In essence, the material universe is transparent to gravitational waves. This makes gravitational wave astronomy a powerful tool when studying the universe. But it’s still in the early stages, and there is much to learn about how gravitational waves behave.

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The Galaxy Tree

First came the trees.In the town of Salamanca, Spain, the photographer noticed how distinctive a grove of oak trees looked after being pruned. Next came the galaxy.The photographer stayed up until 2 am, waiting until the Milky Way Galaxy rose above the level of a majestic looking oak. From this carefully chosen perspective, dust lanes in the galaxy appear to be natural continuations to branches of the tree.

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Virgin Galactic reaches the space frontier over New Mexico for the first time

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane crossed its 50-mile-high space boundary over New Mexico for the first time today, after months of challenges. The trip by VSS Unity marks the first time a spacecraft has been launched so high from a New Mexico spaceport. Unity passed the 50-mile mark twice during tests at California’s Mojave Air and Space Port, in 2018 and 2019.

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Markarian s Chain

Near the heart of theVirgo Galaxy Clusterthe string of galaxies known as Markarian’sChain stretches across this deeptelescopic field of view.Anchored in the frame at bottom center by prominent lenticular galaxies,M84 (bottom)and M86,you can follow the chain up and to the right.Near center you’ll spot the pair of interacting galaxiesNGC 4438 and NGC 4435, known to some asMarkarian’s Eyes.

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Comets Have Tails of gas, Dust… and Metal?

In outer space, an object’s location has a huge impact on its temperature. The closer the object is to its star, the hotter it most likely is. Heat then plays a major role in what materials are present in that object’s atmosphere, if it has one. Lighter elements such as hydrogen and helium and much easier to take a gaseous state and create an atmosphere.

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Shrapnel From Relatively Recent Supernovae Found in the Earth’s Crust

A Japanese oil exploration company recently dug up some samples from the Pacific Ocean floor and donated them to researchers. Those researchers, led by Dr. Anton Wallner at the Australian National University, then found the first ever evidence of a plutonium radioactive isotope that originally came from outer space. Now scientists are trying to understand what could have created that isotope, and another intriguing extraterrestrial one, and what that might have meant for Earth’s cosmic neighborhood a few million years ago.

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Utopia on Mars

Expansive Utopia Planitiaon Mars is strewn with rocks and boulders in this 1976 image.Constructed fromtheViking 2 lander’scolor and black and white image data,the scene approximates the appearance of the high northern martianplain to the human eye.For scale, the prominent rounded rock near center is about 20centimeters (just under 8 inches) across.

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Now casting nationwide: Discovery Channel’s Who Wants to Be an Astronaut

The Discovery Channel announced on May 18, 2021, that it’s launching a new reality show competition called “Who Wants to Be an Astronaut?” It aims to send one ordinary person to the International Space Station for an 8-day stay. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/discovery-channel-who-wants-to-be-an-astronaut

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Larger Rocky Planets Might be Rare Because They Shrunk

Researchers at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics published a paper last week that just might explain a mysterious gap in planet sizes beyond our solar system. Planets between 1.5 and 2 times Earth’s radius are strikingly rare. This new research suggests that the reason might be because planets slightly larger than this, called mini-Neptunes, lose their atmospheres over time, shrinking to become ‘super-Earths’ only slightly larger than our home planet.

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Swarms of Robots Could Dig Underground Cities on Mars

Underground habitats have recently become a focal point of off-planet colonization efforts. Protection from micrometeorites, radiation, and other potential hazards makes underground sites desirable compared to surface dwellings. Building such subterranean structures presents a plethora of challenges, not the least of which is how to actually construct them. A team of researchers at the Delft University of Technology (TUD) is working on a plan to excavate material and then use it to print habitats.

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Pictures from China’s Mars rover fuel NASA chief’s funding pitch to Congress

The first pictures from a Chinese probe on the surface of Mars were released May 19, sparking a plea from NASA’s recently appointed chief for more funding to keep America in the lead on the space frontier. China’s Zhurong rover, which landed on the Red Planet on May 14, sent back pictures as it sat atop its landing platform on the flat plain of Utopia Planitia.

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M13: The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules

In1716, English astronomerEdmond Halley noted,“This is but a little Patch, but it shews itself to the naked Eye, whenthe Sky is serene and the Moon absent.“Of course, M13is now less modestly recognized as the Great Globular Cluster inHercules, one of the brightestglobularstar clusters in the northern sky.Sharp telescopic views like this one reveal the spectacular cluster’shundreds of thousands of stars.

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Astronauts Could Dust off Themselves and Equipment on the Moon With an Electron Beam

In the coming years, NASA will be sending astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. This time, and as part of the Artemis Program, NASA also plans to build the necessary infrastructure to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon and eventually missions to Mars – including the Artemis Base Camp and the orbiting Lunar Gateway.

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How to capture Mercury’s sodium tail

Did you know that the closest planet to the sun, Mercury, has a tail much like a comet? You can see it in photographs taken with special filters to highlight sodium blown off the planet by the solar wind. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/how-to-capture-mercurys-sodium-tail

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At long last, a radio telescope on the moon’s far side

The Lunar Crater Radio Telescope is now moving into Phase 2 of development. It’ll be built by robots, into a natural bowl-shaped crater on the moon’s far side. If completed, it’ll be the largest radio telescope in the solar system. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/lunar-crater-radio-telescope-lcrt-phase-2-duaxel-radio-waves-dark-ages

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The Jellyfish and Mars

Normally faint and elusive, the Jellyfish Nebula is caught inthis alluring scene.In the telescopic field of view two bright yellowish stars,Mu andEtaGeminorum, stand just below and above the Jellyfish Nebula at the left.Cool red giants, they lie at the foot of thecelestialtwin.The Jellyfish Nebula itself floats below and left of center, a bright arcingridge of emission with dangling tentacles.

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A Solution to Space Junk: Satellites Made of Mushrooms?

According to the latest numbers from the ESA’s Space Debris Office (SDO), there are roughly 6,900 artificial satellites in orbit. The situation is going to become exponentially crowded in the coming years, thanks to the many telecommunications, internet, and small satellites that are expected to be launched. This creates all kinds of worries for collision risks and space debris, not to mention environmental concerns.

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Jets from the Necklace Nebula

What celestial body wears the Necklace Nebula?First, analyses indicate that the Necklace is a planetary nebula, a gas cloud emitted by a star toward the end of its life.Also, what appears to be diamonds in the Necklace are actually bright knots of glowing gas. In the center of the Necklace Nebula are likelytwo stars orbiting so close together that they share a common atmosphere and appear as one in the featured image by the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Bright Ejecta Reveals a Fresh Crater on Mars

Meteors hit much harder on Mars than they do on the Earth. Lack of atmosphere obviously contributes to that, but its proximity to the asteroid belt also makes the red planet a more likely target for some gravitationally disturbed rock to run into. Now that we have a satellite infrastructure consistently monitoring Mars, we are able to capture the aftermath of what happens when it is pummeled by space debris, and the results can be dramatic.

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NGC 4565: Galaxy on Edge

Is our Milky Way Galaxy this thin? Magnificent spiral galaxyNGC 4565is viewed edge-on from planet Earth.Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours of the northern sky,in the faint but well-groomedconstellation ComaBerenices.This sharp, colorful image reveals the spiral galaxy’sboxy, bulgingcentral core cut byobscuring dust lanes that laceNGC 4565’s thin galactic plane.

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What’s the Best Way to Water Plants in Space?

Humans have maintained a continuous presence in space on the International Space Station (ISS) for more than 20 years now. It is our longest-running and most comprehensive experiment in long-duration spaceflight. But the ISS is continually supplied with consumables – food, water, and oxygen – so astronauts are largely reliant on Earth.

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60 Years Later, is it Time to Update the Drake Equation?

On November 1st, 1961, a number of prominent scientists converged on the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, for a three-day conference. A year earlier, this facility had been the site of the first modern SETI experiment (Project Ozma), where famed astronomers Frank Drake and Carl Sagan used the Green Bank telescope (aka.

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Listen: Have aliens already visited us?

A podcast featuring Harvard theoretical physicist Avi Loeb, on the subject of whether ‘Oumuamua – the strange object that swept through our solar system in 2017 – is an artifact of an alien intelligence. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/podcast-have-ets-aliens-already-visited-us-avi-loeb

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NGC 602 and Beyond

The clouds may look like an oyster, and the stars like pearls, but look beyond.Near the outskirts of theSmall Magellanic Cloud,a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant,lies 5 million year young star cluster NGC 602.Surrounded by natal gas and dust,NGC 602 is featured in thisstunning Hubble image of the region.

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Astronomers Measure the Background Brightness of the Night sky Across the World. Canary Islands are the Darkest in the Survey

Being able to look up at a clear, dark sky is becoming more and more rare in the rich world. Authors, artists, and even scientists have started to express concern about what our lack of daily exposure to a dark night time sky might mean for our psyche and our sense of place in the universe.

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Massive Stars Mix Hydrogen in Their Cores, Causing Them to Pulse Every few Hours or Days

Main sequence stars fuse hydrogen in their cores. It’s how they produce the energy they need to shine and keeps them from collapsing under their own weight. As hydrogen is fused into helium, there is less hydrogen available in the core. This can pose a challenge for large stars. They need to fuse a tremendous amount of hydrogen to keep shining, and they can’t do that when core hydrogen is depleted.

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The Southern Cliff in the Lagoon

Undulating bright ridges and dusty clouds crossthis close-up of thenearby star forming region M8, also known as theLagoon Nebula.A sharp, false-color composite of narrow band visible and broad bandnear-infrared data from the 8-meterGemini South Telescope,the entire view spans about 20 light-years through a regionof the nebula sometimes called the Southern Cliff.

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Older Stars Rotate Faster Than Expected

Older stars should slow down, but new observations reveal that they have just as much of a spring in their step as their younger cousins. Astronomers suspect that complex interactions with the star’s magnetic field might be to blame. Continue reading “Older Stars Rotate Faster Than Expected” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/151146/older-stars-rotate-faster-than-expected/

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Concerns About James Webb’s Ariane 5 Rocket Might Push the Launch Back

A new report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that the launch of the long-awaited, highly anticipated James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will very likely be delayed due to an anomaly identified in the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Launch for JWST is currently scheduled for October 31, 2021, but that date could slip by at least a couple of weeks.

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M104: The Sombrero Galaxy

A gorgeous spiral galaxy,M104 is famousfor its nearly edge-onprofile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust lanes.Seen in silhouette against an extensive central bulge of stars,the swath of cosmic dust lends abroad brimmed hat-like appearance to the galaxy suggestinga more popular moniker, the Sombrero Galaxy.This sharp optical view of the well-known galaxy madefrom ground-based image data was processed to preservedetails often lost in overwhelming glare of M104’sbright central bulge.

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Webb Fully Unfurls for the Last Time on Earth. The Next Time Will Be in Space

The primary mirror of the long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was opened for the last time on Earth before the launch of the observatory, currently scheduled for October 31, 2021. During some of the final checkouts before the telescope heads to space, engineers commanded the 18 hexagonal mirrors to fully expand and lock into place, just like they will do once the Webb telescope reaches its destination in space.

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Exploding Stars are Titanium Factories

If you’re a fan of titanium, you should head to the nearest supernova. You’ll get more than enough of it. And its presence can help astronomers understand how supernovae work. Continue reading “Exploding Stars are Titanium Factories” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/151143/exploding-stars-are-titanium-factories/

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Gaia Might Even be Able to Detect the Gravitational Wave Background of the Universe

The Gaia spacecraft is an impressive feat of engineering. Its primary mission is to map the position and motion of more than a billion stars in our galaxy, creating the most comprehensive map of the Milky Way thus far. Gaia collects such a large amount of precision data that it can make discoveries well beyond its main mission.

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A Comet Seen at the end of its Life. It’s covered in talcum powder

Astronomers finally managed to observe a comet nearing the end of its life. And they found that it’s covered in talcum powder. They have no idea why. Continue reading “A Comet Seen at the end of its Life. It’s covered in talcum powder” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/151145/a-comet-seen-at-the-end-of-its-life-its-covered-in-talcum-powder/

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Extrasolar Object Interceptor Would be Able to Chase Down the Next Oumuamua or Borisov and Actually Return a Sample

What if we had the ability to chase down interstellar objects passing through our Solar System, like Oumuamua or Comet Borisov? Such a spacecraft would need to be ready to go at a moment’s notice, with the capacity to increase speed and change direction quickly. That’s the idea behind a new mission concept called the Extrasolar Object Interceptor and Sample Return spacecraft.

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The Comet, the Whale, and the Hockey Stick

Closest to the Sun on March 1, andclosest to planet Earth on April 23, thisComet ATLAS (C/2020 R4)shows a faint greenish coma and short tailin this pretty, telescopic field of view.Captured at its position on May 5,the comet was within the boundaries of northern constellation Canes Venatici(the Hunting Dogs),and near the line-of-sight to intriguing background galaxies popularlyknown as theWhale and the Hockey Stick.

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In 1.3 Million Years, a Star Will Come Within 24 Light-Days of the Sun

Within the Milky Way, there are an estimated 200 to 400 billion stars, all of which orbit around the center of our galaxy in a coordinated cosmic dance. As they orbit, stars in the galactic disk (where our Sun is located) periodically shuffle about and get closer to one another. At times, this can have a drastic effect on the star that experience a close encounter, disrupting their systems and causing planets to be ejected.

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Voyager 1 detects a hum in interstellar space

Now 8 years into its travels in the deep reaches of space between the stars, Voyager 1 has detected a faint, low-level hum. It stems from the vibration of the plasma, or ionized gas, in interstellar space. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/voyager-1-droning-hum-plasma-interstellar-space

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How Squeezable are Neutron Stars?

Two neutron stars. One is 50% more massive than the other, yet they are almost exactly the same size. The results have big implications for understanding what neutron stars are really made of. Continue reading “How Squeezable are Neutron Stars?” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/151140/how-squeezable-are-neutron-stars/

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Following the Moon for Amazing May Astronomy

The May Moon Meets Venus and Mercury, at dusk en route to eclipse season and more. Wonder where all the solar system action is hiding? While the dusk sky may seem devoid of planets (save for Mars), that’s all about to change this evening. The watch-phrase for astronomy in May 2021 is to ‘follow the Moon’ as it makes several spectacular planetary passes, then kicks off the first eclipse season of the year.

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Astronomers see a Rare “Double Quasar” in a Pair of Merging Galaxies

What’s better than a quasar? That’s right, two quasars. Astronomers have spotted for the first time two rare double-quasars, and the results show us the dynamic, messy consequences of galaxy formation. Continue reading “Astronomers see a Rare “Double Quasar” in a Pair of Merging Galaxies” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/151141/astronomers-see-a-rare-double-quasar-in-a-pair-of-merging-galaxies/

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A Meteor and the Gegenschein

Is the night sky darkest in the direction opposite the Sun?No. In fact, a rarely discernable faint glow known as the gegenschein (German for “counter glow”) can be seen 180 degrees around from the Sun in an extremely dark sky.The gegenschein is sunlight back-scattered off small interplanetarydust particles. These dust particles are millimeter sized splinters from asteroids and orbit in the ecliptic plane of the planets.

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Blue Origin Will Finally Fly Passengers to the Edge of Space in July

Things have been heating up lately over at Blue Origin, the commercial spaceflight company launched by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Since Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon to take a more hands-on role with his other projects, the company has made some rather positive strides. This includes a “dress rehearsal” test flight that took place on April 14th and brought their New Shepard a step closer to bringing passengers to space.

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How can White Dwarfs Produce Such Powerful Magnetic Fields?

White dwarfs have some surprisingly strong magnetic fields, and one team of astronomers may have finally found the reason why. When they cool, they can activate a dynamo mechanism similar to what powers the Earth’s magnetic field. Continue reading “How can White Dwarfs Produce Such Powerful Magnetic Fields?” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Starlink and OneWeb Have Their First Avoidance Maneuver With Each Other’s Constellations

Two companies, OneWeb and SpaceX, are racing to put fleets of thousands of communication satellites into orbit. In March they had their first near-miss. Avoidance maneuvers were successful, but how many more close calls will they face in the future? Continue reading “Starlink and OneWeb Have Their First Avoidance Maneuver With Each Other’s Constellations”

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Is war in space inevitable?

What conditions could lead to clashes in space? Is such a situation a given, or can conflicts be short-circuited ahead of time? Space.com asked experts for their thoughts. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/is-space-war-inevitable-anti-satellite-technoloy

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The fate of China’s Long March 5B rocket

The core stage of China’s Long March 5B rocket – which launched the Tianhe space station module – apparently plummeted into the Indian Ocean late May 8, 2021. It was one of the largest-ever pieces of space debris to make an uncontrolled reentry back into Earth’s atmosphere. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/china-uncontrollable-long-march-5b-core-stage-hurls-towards-earth

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Lightning and Orion Beyond Uluru

What’s happening behind Uluru? A United Nations World Heritage Site,Uluru is an extraordinary 350-meter high mountain in central Australia that rises sharply from nearly flat surroundings.Composed of sandstone, Uluru has slowly formed over the past 300 million years as softer rock eroded away. In the background of the featured image taken in mid-May, a raging thunderstorm is visible.

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Swimming up sky and up river

A couple of charts from master chart-maker Guy Ottewell, showing Mercury in the sky now and throughout 2021. Plus a word about a lost whale … Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/charts-guy-ottewell-mercury-2021

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A new Method Simulates the Universe 1000 Times Faster

Cosmologists love universe simulations. Even models covering hundreds of millions of light years can be useful for understanding fundamental aspects of cosmology and the early universe. There’s just one problem – they’re extremely computationally intensive. A 500 million light year swath of the universe could take more than 3 weeks to simulate.

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Young Stars can Evaporate Nearby Disks Before They can Form Planets

Many planetary systems may get snuffed out before they even get a chance to form, according to new research. The culprit: nearby stars, capable of evaporating entire protoplanetary disks just when they begin to form. Continue reading “Young Stars can Evaporate Nearby Disks Before They can Form Planets” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Warp drives: Physicists give chances of faster-than-light space travel a boost

If humanity wants to travel between stars, people are going to need to travel faster than the fastest-moving stuff known in our universe: light. New research suggests that it might be possible to build warp drives and beat the galactic speed limit. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/warp-drive-chances-of-faster-than-light-space-travel

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Star Clusters M35 and NGC 2158

Clusters of stars can be near or far, young or old, diffuse or compact. The featured image shows two quite contrasting open star clusters in the same field.M35, on the lower left, is relatively nearby at 2800light years distant, relatively young at 150 million years old, and relatively diffuse, with about 2500 stars spread out over a volume 30 light years across.

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How do you measure the mass of a star?

Binary stars – a star system consisting of two stars – are extremely useful. They give all the information needed to measure the stars masses’. Here is how. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/how-astronomers-learn-the-masses-of-double-stars

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Natural radio signal buzzes in Venus’ atmosphere

New measurements from Parker Solar Probe – the first new direct measurements of Venus’ atmosphere in nearly 30 years – showed an unexpected natural radio signal being emitted by Venus’ ionosphere. The probe made the discovery while using Venus as a “gravity slingshot” to come closer to the sun. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.

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It’s Official, Astronaut Bill Nelson is NASA’s new Administrator

On March 19th, 2021, the Biden Administration announced that they had nominated a successor for the role of NASA Administrator. Their nominee was Sen. Clarence William Nelson II (aka. Bill Nelson), a Democratic Senator from Florida, an attorney, and a former payload specialist at NASA. On Monday, May 3rd, he assumed the role of 14th NASA Administrator during a ceremony where he was given the oath of office.

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Horsehead and Orion Nebulas

The dark Horsehead Nebula and the glowingOrion Nebula are contrasting cosmic vistas.Adrift 1,500 light-years away in one ofthe night sky’smost recognizableconstellations,they appear in opposite corners of the abovestunning mosaic.The familiar Horseheadnebula appears as a dark cloud, a small silhouettenotched against the long red glow at the lower left.Alnitak is the easternmost star inOrion’s belt and is seen as the brightest star to the left of theHorsehead.

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Volcanoes on Mars Might Still be Active

Back in March, NASA’s InSight lander detected two large quakes from a geologically active region of Mars called the Cerberus Fossae. Now, using imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which circles the red planet at an altitude of about 300km, researchers have discovered that the Cerberus Fossae region holds the most recent evidence of volcanic activity ever seen on Mars.

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Deepscape at Yacoraite

In this evocative night scene a dusty central Milky Wayrises over theancient Andeanarchaeological site of Yacoraite innorthwestern Argentina.The denizens of planet Earthreaching skywardare the large Argentine saguaro cactus currentlynative to the arid region.The unusual yellow-hued reflection nebula above is created bydust scattering starlightaround red giant star Antares.Alpha star of the constellation Scorpius,Antares is over 500 light-years distant.

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History of Mars’ habitability preserved in ancient dunes

On Earth, scientists study rock layers and the fossils embedded in them to learn about ancient life. A new study focused on red Mars – the desert planet – did something similar. It looked at the record of changing habitability preserved in ancient dune fields. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/history-of-mars-habitability-preserved-in-ancient-dunes

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We Could Detect Extraterrestrial Satellite Megaconstellations Within a few Hundred Light-Years

Starlink is one of the most ambitious space missions we’ve ever undertaken. The current plan is to put 12,000 communication satellites in low-Earth orbit, with the possibility of another 30,000 later. Just getting them into orbit is a huge engineering challenge, and with so many chunks of metal in orbit, some folks worry it could lead to a cascade of collisions that makes it impossible for satellites to survive.

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What we’ve Learned About Venus From the Parker Solar Probe

The Parker Solar Probe has been getting in a lot of extracurricular activity lately. Originally designed to observe the Sun, the probe has been taking full advantage of its path through the solar system. In addition to snapping pictures of comets, the probe has repeatedly focused on Venus, including capturing an image peering underneath the cloud cover of the notoriously hot world.

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One Full Year of Seismic Data Collected by Mars Insight Includes 500 Quakes

The English vocabulary has some words that only make sense from an Earth-bound perspective. Earthquake is one of those. Even in some science fiction and fantasy books, where the action takes place somewhere other than Earth, that team is used to denote the ground shaking. It’s therefore nice to see planetary scientists trying to expand the root word to other planets.

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Mercury Redstone 3 Launch

Sixty years ago, near thedawn of the space age,NASA controllers “lit the candle” and sentMercury astronaut Alan Shepardarcing into space atop a Redstone rocket.His cramped space capsule was dubbed Freedom 7.Broadcast live to a global television audience, the historicMercury-Redstone 3(MR-3) spacecraft was launched fromCape Canaveral Florida at 9:34 a.m. Eastern Time on May 5, 1961.

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Uncontrollable China rocket hurtles towards re-entry

China’s Long March 5B rocket successfully reached orbit as planned. The core stage, however, also reached orbit, and may now be one of the largest ever to make an uncontrolled reentry back into Earth’s atmosphere. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/china-uncontrollable-long-march-5b-core-stage-hurls-towards-earth

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Is there a pattern to the universe?

For decades, cosmologists have wondered if the large-scale structure of the universe is a fractal — that is, if it looks the same no matter how large the scale. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/universe-pattern-fractals-cosmic-web

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Windblown NGC 3199

NGC 3199 lies about 12,000 light-years away,a glowing cosmic cloud in the nautical southern constellationof Carina.The nebula is about 75 light-years across in thisnarrowband, false-color view. Though the deep image reveals a more or less completebubble shape, it does look very lopsided with a much brighter edgealong the top.Near the center is aWolf-Rayet star,a massive, hot, short-lived star that generates an intense stellar wind.

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SpaceX’s SN15 Starship Prototype Nails It!

On the afternoon of May 5th, 2021, at 05:24 PM local time, SpaceX made its fifth attempt at a high-altitude test flight and soft landing with a Starship prototype. Given the outcomes of the previous test, this event had many people on the edge of their seats. In all four attempts, the prototypes managed to reach their maximum altitude and pull off the bellyflop maneuver, but then exploded during landing (or shortly thereafter).

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The length of a day on Venus is always changing

Scientists have used radio waves to precisely measure Venus’ spin rate and tilt on its axis. We knew the Venus day was exceedingly long, but now we know that the length of a day on Venus regularly changes in length! Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/venus-length-of-day-spin-rate-axial-tilt-radio-waves

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Map of Milky Way halo reveals dark matter ocean

The gravity of the Large Magellanic Cloud – one of the Milky Way’s satellite dwarf galaxies – is collecting stars behind it in a trail, like the wake from a boat, as it travels through our galaxy’s halo. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/map-milky-way-halo-large-magellanic-wake-dark-matter

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Dark Matter Could Change the Temperature of Exoplanets, Allowing us to Detect it

Ah, dark matter, you continue to allude us. The stuff is incredibly difficult to study. It doesn’t interact with light, so our evidence of it is based upon its gravitational effects on light and visible matter. And the biggest difficulty is that we still don’t know what it is. Efforts to detect dark matter directly have come up empty, as have indirect methods such as looking for evidence of dark matter through things such as excess gamma-rays in the Milky Way.

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STEVE over Copper Harbor

What creates STEVEs?Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancements (STEVEs) have likely been seen since antiquity, but only in the past five years has it been realized that their colors and shapes make them different from auroras.Seen as single bright streaks of pink and purple, the origin of STEVEs remain an active topic of research.

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“Ain’t like Dusting Crops!” How We’ll Actually Navigate Interstellar Space

May the 4th be With You! Blasting out of Mos Eisley Space Port, the Millennium Falcon carries our adventurers off Tatooine bringing Luke Skywalker across the threshold into space. With Imperial Star Destroyers closing, Luke bemoans Han Solo’s delay in jumping to Hyperspace. It takes time to make these calculations through the Falcon’s “Navicomputer.

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How Long is a Day on Venus? We Finally Know the Exact Answer

Venus, aka. Earth’s “Sister Planet,” has always been shrouded in mystery for astronomers. Despite being planet Earth’s closest neighbor, scientists remained ignorant of what Venus’ surface even looked like for well into the 20th century, thanks to its incredibly dense and opaque atmosphere. Even in the age of robotic space exploration, its surface has been all but inaccessible to probes and landers.

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Dune Fields in Gale Crater Tell the Story of Mars’ Shifting Climate Over Eons

Rocks can tell us a lot about a planet. On Earth, the study of geology has been around for hundreds of years and has resulted in such scientific findings as the theory of plate tectonics and the discovery of dinosaur fossils. Geology on Mars has not had as long and storied a history, but with the rovers that have landed on the planet in the last few decades, Martian geology has started to bloom.

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New All-Sky Map of the Milky Way’s Galactic Halo

The outer reaches of the Milky Way galaxy are a different place. Stars are much harder to come by, with most of this “galactic halo” being made up of empty space. But scientists theorize that there is an abundance of one particular thing in this desolate area – dark matter. Now, a team from Harvard and the University of Arizona (UA) spent some time studying and modeling one of the galaxy’s nearest neighbors to try to tease out more information about that dark matter, and as a result came up with an all new way to look at the halo itself.

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What Proxima’s massive flare means for our chances of alien neighbors

In May 2019, astronomers measured the largest flare ever from Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our sun. What do such flares mean for possible alien life, on a planet in the Proxima Centauri system, only 4 light-years away? Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/massive-flare-proxima-centauri-what-it-means-alien-life-et

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Space Station, Solar Prominences, Sun

That’s no sunspot.It’s the International Space Station (ISS) caught passing in front of the Sun.Sunspots, individually, have a dark central umbra, a lighter surrounding penumbra, and no Dragon capsules attached. By contrast, the ISS is a complex and multi-spired mechanism, one of the largest and most complicated spacecraft ever created by humanity.

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Protests From Dynetics and Blue Origin put NASA’s Lunar Lander Award to SpaceX on Hold

Project Artemis, NASA’s long-awaited plan for sending astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era, has taken many steps forward. Aside from the development of the Space Launch System (SLS), the Orion spacecraft, and the elements that will make up the Lunar Gateway, NASA recently awarded SpaceX with the contract to build the Human Landing System (HLS) that will transport astronauts to the lunar surface.

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Astronomers are Watching a gas Giant Grow, Right in Front of Their Eyes

In the vastness of space, astronomers are likely to find instances of almost every astronomical phenomena if they look hard enough. Many planetary phenomena are starting to come into sharper focus as the astronomy community continues to focus on finding exoplanets. Now a team led by Yifan Zhou at UT Austin has directly imaged a gas giant still in formation.

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Apollo 11: Earth, Moon, Spaceship

After the most famous voyage of modern times, it was time to go home.After proving that humanity has the ability to go beyond the confines of planet Earth, the first humans to walk on another world – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin – flew the ascent stage of their Lunar Module back to meet Michael Collins in the moon-orbiting Command and Service Module.

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Instead of Betelgeuse, Keep Your eye on AG Carinae, Another Star That’s About to go Supernova

Astrophotography is one of the most gratifying parts of space exploration, and there’s nothing better at it than Hubble. Recently, it celebrated the 31st anniversary of its launch by taking a spectacular image of one of the most impressive stars in the sky – AG Carinae. In the not too distant future, Hubble, or a successor, might be able to capture an even more spectacular display from the star when it goes supernova.

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Chinese Company Claims to be Working on a Starship-Like Rocket

Last weekend (April 24th), China celebrated its sixth “National Space Day” (aka. Aerospace Industry Achievement Exhibition) in Nanjing, an event that highlights advances China has made in space. Similar to Space Day that is held each year on the first Thursday in May (this year, it will be held on May 7th), the goal is to foster interest in space exploration and the STEMS so as to inspire the next generation of astronauts and aerospace engineers.

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Black Hole-Neutron Star Collisions Could Finally Settle the Different Measurements Over the Expansion Rate of the Universe

If you’ve been following developments in astronomy over the last few years, you may have heard about the so-called “crisis in cosmology,” which has astronomers wondering whether there might be something wrong with our current understanding of the Universe. This crisis revolves around the rate at which the Universe expands: measurements of the expansion rate in the present Universe don’t line up with measurements of the expansion rate during the early Universe.

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Breakthrough Listen Searched for Signals From Intelligent Civilizations Near the Center of the Milky Way

The Breakthrough Listen project has made several attempts to find evidence of alien civilizations through radio astronomy. Its latest effort focuses attention on the center of our galaxy. Continue reading “Breakthrough Listen Searched for Signals From Intelligent Civilizations Near the Center of the Milky Way” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/151063/breakthrough-listen-searched-for-signals-from-intelligent-civilizations-near-the-center-of-the-milky-way/

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Are we Seeing a Star That Just got Spaghettified?

Sometimes astronomers come up with awesome names for certain phenomena and then feel like they can’t use them in formal scientific contexts. Tidal Disruption Events (TDEs) are one of those – colloquially they are known as “spaghettifications” where a star is pulled apart until its constituent matter looks like a string of spaghetti.

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Clouds of the Carina Nebula

What forms lurk in the mists of the Carina Nebula?The dark ominous figures are actually molecular clouds, knots of molecular gas and dust so thick they have become opaque. In comparison, however, these clouds are typically much less dense than Earth’s atmosphere. Featured here is a detailed image of the core of the Carina Nebula, a part where both dark and colorful clouds of gas and dust are particularly prominent.

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Mid-Latitude Glaciers on Mars Could Supply Water to Human Explorers

By Earth standards, the surface of Mars is the picture of desolation. It’s not only irradiated and cold enough to make Antarctica look balmy, but it’s also one-thousands times drier than the driest places on Earth. However, beneath the super-arid surface of the Red Planet, there are abundant supplies of water ice that could someday be accessible to human explorers (and even settlers).

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Perseverance from Ingenuity

Flying at an altitude of 5 meters(just over 16 feet), on April 25 the Ingenuity helicoptersnapped this sharp image.On its second flight above the surface of Mars,its color camera was looking back toward Ingenuity’s current base atWright Brothers Fieldand Octavia E. Butler Landing marked by the tracks of thePerseverance rover at the top of the frame.

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How Salty is Enceladus’ Ocean Under the ice?

An icy satellite of Saturn, Enceladus, has been a subject of increasing interest in recent years since Cassini captured jets of water and other material being ejected out of the south pole of the moon. One particularly tantalizing hypothesis supported by the sample composition is that there might be life in the oceans under the ice shells of Enceladus.

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China Launches the Core Module of Its New Space Station

Early on Thursday, a Long March 5B rocket – currently the most powerful of China’s space launch vehicles – blasted off from Wenchang, carrying the first major component of an ambitious new modular space station. The station module, dubbed Tianhe (Harmony of the Heavens), marks the next big step in China’s human spaceflight program in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

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11-Sigma Detection of Dark Energy Comes From Measuring Over a Million Extremely Distant Galaxies

After galaxies began to form in the early universe, the universe continued to expand. The gravitational attraction between galaxies worked to pull galaxies together into superclusters, while dark energy and its resulting cosmic expansion worked to drive these clusters apart. As a result, the universe is filled with tight clusters of galaxies separated by vast voids of mostly empty space.

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Pink and the Perigee Moon

On April 25 a nearly full moon rose just before sunset.Welcomed in a clear blue sky and framed by cherry blossoms,its familiar face was captured in this snapshotfrom Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland.Known to some as a Pink Moon,April’sfull lunar phaseoccurred with the moon near perigee.That’s the closest point in itsnot-quite-circularorbit around planet Earth,making this Pink Moon one of the closest and brightest full moonsof the year.

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Ingenuity Completes a Huge 50-Meter Flight on Mars

On Feb. 18th, 2021, the Perseverance rover landed on Mars carrying the most advanced scientific instruments ever sent to another planet. It also carried experiments designed to push the envelope of exploration and help pave the way for crewed missions to Mars. This includes the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, an experimental flight system designed to see if aerial systems can operate in the Martian atmosphere.

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Stare Straight Down Into a Giant Storm on Jupiter

A new batch of images recently arrived at Earth from JunoCam, the visible light camera on board the Juno spacecraft at Jupiter. The camera has provided stunning views of the gas giant world since the spacecraft’s arrival in 2016. Citizen scientists and imaging enthusiasts act as the camera’s virtual imaging team, participating in key steps of the process by making suggestions of areas on Jupiter to take pictures and doing the image editing work.

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NASA is now Planning a Mission to go 1,000 AU From the Sun, Deep Into Interstellar Space

A different perspective can do wonders. Perceiving things from a different angle can both metaphorically and literally allow people to see things differently. And in space, there are an almost infinite number of angles that objects can be observed from. Like all perspectives, some are more informative than others. Sometimes those informative perspectives are also the hardest to reach.

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Apollo 17: The Crescent Earth

Our fair planetsports a curved, sunlit crescentagainst the black backdrop of space in this stunning photograph.From the unfamiliar perspective,the Earth is smalland, like atelescopic image of a distant planet,the entire horizon is completely within the field of view.Enjoyed bycrews on boardthe International Space Station,only much closer views of the planet are possible from low Earth orbit.

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We Could Detect Alien Civilizations Through Their Interstellar Quantum Communication

Since the mid-20th century, scientists have been looking for evidence of intelligent life beyond our Solar System. For much of that time, scientists who are engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) have relied on radio astronomy surveys to search for signs of technological activity (aka. “technosignatures“). With 4,375 exoplanets confirmed (and counting!

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Mars has the Right Conditions for Life Just Under the Surface

According to the immortal words of Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) “Life..uh…finds a way”. Back in 2005, an article in Nature used the famous quote from Jurassic Park to describe the possibility of life surviving on Mars. It encapsulates the hope that life’s adaptability, which it has proved itself so many times over on Earth, could hold true on other planets as well.

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“Put LUCKY on My Tombstone.” Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins Dies at 90

We bid a reluctant but truly fond farewell today to Michael Collins. The NASA astronaut passed away at the age of 90 on April 28, 2021. Collins flew on the historic Apollo 11 mission in 1969, and also on Gemini 10 in 1966. As Command Module Pilot, Collins was the lone member of the Apollo 11 crew who remained in orbit while his fellow astronauts became the first to land and walk on the Moon.

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Radio waves from famous FRB surprisingly long and late

Astronomers have managed to detect very long wavelength radio emission from a well-studied, repeating fast radio burst, called FRB 20180916B. What’s more, the longer wavelengths arrive 3 days after the shorter wavelength counterpart of the signal! Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/fast-radio-burst-waves-long-and-late

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North Star: Polaris and Surrounding Dust

Why is Polaris called the North Star?First, Polaris is the nearest bright star toward the north spin axis of the Earth. Therefore, as the Earth turns, stars appear to revolve around Polaris, but Polaris itself always stays in the same northerly direction – making it the North Star. Since no bright star is near the south spin axis of the Earth, there is currently no South Star.

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See 2 black holes in cosmic dance

NASA has released a cool new visualization showing two massive black holes orbiting each other in a stunning display of light. The intense gravity and other phenomena all play a part in producing this mesmerizing display. Watch here. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/visualization-2-black-holes-orbiting-each-other

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Animation: Black Hole Star Shredder

What happens if a star gets too close to a black hole?The black hole can rip it apart – but how?It’s not the high gravitational attraction itself that’s the problem – it’s the difference in gravitational pull across the star that creates the destruction. In the featured animated video illustrating this disintegration, you first see a star approaching the black hole.

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Scientists to live tweet asteroid impact exercise

Follow the action as asteroid scientists, space agencies and civil protection organizations participate in a drill – simulating an asteroid impact about to happen – during this week’s virtual Planetary Defense Conference. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-impact-exercise-planetary-defense-conference-how-to-participate

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A Sagittarius Triplet

These three bright nebulae are often featured on telescopic tours of theconstellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields ofthe central Milky Way.In fact, 18th century cosmic touristCharles Messiercataloged two of them; M8,the large nebula below and right of center,and colorful M20near the top of the frame.The third emission region includesNGC 6559, left of M8 andseparated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane.

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Planetary Nebula Mz3: The Ant Nebula

Why isn’t this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round? Clues might includethe high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star featured here at the nebula’s center.

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Animation Shows how Saturn’s Rings Move at Different Speeds

Saturn’s rings are one of the most recognized and revered celestial objects known to the human race. From a distance, they look like a disk of layered crystal or multicolored disks within disks that wrap around Saturn’s hazy umber face. When viewed up close, we see that these rings are actually particles of water ice (from microns to icebergs), as well as silicates, carbon dioxide, and ammonia.

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1st complete view of Venus’ orbital dust ring

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, currently studying the sun, has observed the entire dust ring that encircles the sun along Venus’ orbit. It is the first complete view of this dust band from any spacecraft. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/1st-complete-view-of-venus-orbital-dust-ring

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Streak and Plume from SpaceX Crew2 Launch

What’s happening in the sky? The pre-dawn sky first seemed relatively serene yesterday morning over Indian Harbor Beach in Florida, USA.But then it lit up with a rocket launch. Just to the north, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 Mission blasted into space aboard a powerful Falcon 9 rocket.The featured time-lapse video – compressing 12-minutes into 8-seconds – shows the bright launch plume starting on the far left.

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Perseverance Successfully Extracts Oxygen From the Martian Atmosphere. About 10 Minutes of Breathing Time for an Astronaut

Humanity achieved an incredible series of new milestones on Mars this week. It began on Monday April 19th, when the Ingenuity helicopter demonstrated the first-ever powered, controlled flight on another world. And now, for the first time, the Perseverance rover has used ingredients from the Martian atmosphere to create breathable oxygen, in a test that might pave the way for future astronauts to ‘live off the land’ on the Red Planet.

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Record-breaking flare from nearby Proxima Centauri

Astronomers saw Proxima Centauri – the star nearest our sun – emit a flare, or burst of radiation, 100 times more powerful than flares from our sun. They said Proxima’s flare ranks as one of the most violent seen on a solitary star anywhere in the galaxy. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/record-breaking-flare-from-proxima-centauri

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Flying Over the Earth at Night II

Recorded during 2017, timelapse sequences from theInternational Space Station are compiled in thisserene video of planet Earth at Night.Fans of low Earth orbit can start by enjoying the view asgreen and red aurora borealisslather up the sky.The night scene tracks from northwest to southeast across North America,toward the Gulf of Mexico and the Florida coast.

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Giant Planet is Found at an Extreme Distance From its Star

One of the best things about the sheer number of exoplanets that astronomers are currently finding is how some are just very different. Those differences can sometimes undermine standing theories, and prompt scientists to start considering new theories that account for the new information. That is undoubtedly what will happen to accommodate a new massive planet found by a team led by Dutch scientists.

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Climate change has altered the Earth's tilt

Earth’s poles are moving — and that’s normal. But new research suggests that within just decades, climate change and human water use have given the poles’ wandering an additional nudge. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/climate-change-tilting-earth-axis

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Planet Earth at Twilight

No sudden, sharp boundary marks the passage of day into night inthis gorgeous viewof ocean and clouds overour fair planet Earth.Instead, the shadow line or terminator is diffuse and showsthe gradual transition to darkness we experience as twilight.With the Sun illuminating the scene from the right,the cloud tops reflect gently reddenedsunlightfilteredthrough the dusty troposphere,the lowest layer of the planet’s nurturing atmosphere.

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Blue Origin’s Latest New Shepard Flight is a Success, With Passengers Climbing on Board (and Getting off Again Before it Flew)

In 2000, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos founded Blue Origin, a commercial space company intended to become one of the crown jewels of his financial empire. Unfortunately, Blue Origin has lost ground in recent years to companies like SpaceX, which have been pushing the envelope with the development of reusable launch systems, resupply services, and human-rated spacecraft.

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Catch Comet R4 ATLAS as it Nears Earth

The coming weeks are a great time to catch comet C/2020 R4 ATLAS… while you can. Looking to do some springtime astronomy? With temperatures warming up in the northern hemisphere in April through May, galaxy season is upon us. At dusk, the area in the Bowl of Virgo asterism rising in the east is rife with clusters of galaxies that spill over into the adjacent constellations of Coma Berenices and Boötes… But this May, keep an eye out for a fuzzball interloper that is not a galaxy: Comet C/2020 R4 ATLAS.

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Centaurus As Warped Magnetic Fields

When galaxies collide – what happens to their magnetic fields?To help find out, NASA pointed SOFIA, its flying 747, at galactic neighbor Centaurus A to observe the emission of polarized dust – which traces magnetic fields. Cen A’s unusual shape results from the clash of two galaxies with jets powered by gas accreting onto a central supermassive black hole.

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What if Starship Didn’t Do a Landing Burn at All?

Thanks to Musk’s preference for sharing his ideas directly with the public, SpaceX is inundated with all kinds of proposals from citizen scientists and space-exploration enthusiasts – some of which are practical and some outlandish. This latest proposal definitely straddles these two categories! In an animation shared via Twitter, 3D digital artist Nick Henning offered an alternative vision for a SpaceX tower that could “catch” the Super Heavy.

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One Idea to Explain Dark Matter – Ultralight Bosons – Fails the Test

Dark matter continues to resist our best efforts to pin it down. While dark matter remains a dominant theory of cosmology, and there is lots of evidence to support a universe filled with cold dark matter, every search for dark matter particles yields nothing. A new study continues that tradition, ruling out a range of dark matter candidates.

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New Horizons passes milestone distance 50 AU

On April 17, 2021, the New Horizons spacecraft passed 50 astronomical units – 50 times Earth’s distance from the sun – while speeding toward interstellar space. It also captured an image of another earthly spacecraft, even farther out. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/new-horizons-50-au-milestone-photo-voyager-1

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Gamma-ray bursts don't get kicked around

For years, astronomers thought that the objects responsible for short gamma-ray bursts get kicked out of their home galaxies shortly after they’re born. But new observations prove otherwise. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/short-gamma-ray-bursts-home-galaxies

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Ingenuity: First Flight over Mars

What’s the best way to explore Mars?Perhaps there is no single best way, but a newly demonstrated method shows tremendous promise: flight.Powered flight has the promise to search vast regions and scout out particularly interesting areas for more detailed investigation. Yesterday, for the first time, powered flight was demonstrated on Mars by a small helicopter named Ingenuity.

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Meteorites Hold Early Atmospheres From Across the Solar System

Since they were formed in the early solar system, many meteorites offer an unadulterated view into what that solar system was made out of, or what happened to it as we reported before. Recently a team of researchers led by Maggie Thompson at University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) took a look at the chemical composition of three different chondritic meteorites, which have largely been untouched since before the planets were formed.

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This Is a Collapsed Pit on Mars, Not a Pimple

Mars has been in the news a lot lately, and for good reason. With the historic landing of the Perseverance Rover earlier in the year, and the successful flight of Ingenuity, the first-ever aircraft to fly in another atmosphere, earlier this morning (April 19, 2021), there’s no shortage of exciting stories of technical brilliance from the human-built wonders exploring the red planet.

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The Galactic Center in Infrared

What does the center of our galaxy look like? In visible light, the Milky Way’s center is hidden by clouds ofobscuring dust and gas.But in this stunning vista, the Spitzer Space Telescope’sinfrared cameras, penetrate much of thedust revealing the stars of the crowdedgalactic centerregion.A mosaic of many smaller snapshots, the detailed,false-color image showsolder, cool stars in bluish hues.

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Finding Oxygen on an Alien World Doesn't Always Mean There's Life There

We now know the universe is filled with planets. By one estimate, there are more than 20 billion Earth-like worlds in our galaxy alone. But how many of them are likely to have life? And how would we know if they do? Unless they happen to send us a very clear message directly, the most likely way we’ll discover exoplanet life is by looking at their atmospheres.

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Ground-Based Lasers Could Push Space Debris off Collision-Course Orbits

Researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) are finding new uses for the laser-based technology that sharpens telescope imagery – called adaptive optics – and it just might help mitigate the world’s growing space debris problem. Purpose-built lasers could give derelict satellites a slight ‘push’ of photons, imparting just enough energy to change the debris’s orbit and prevent an impending collision.

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Citizen Scientists Discover a new Feature in Star Formation: “Yellowballs”

AI is often touted as being particularly good at finding patterns amongst reams of data. But humans also are extremely good at pattern recognition, especially when it comes to visual images. Citizen science efforts around the globe leverage this fact, and recent results released from the Milky Way Project on Zooinverse show how effective it can be.

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Biden Administration is Looking for a 6.3% Increase in NASA’s Budget for 2022

Space research, like much else in capitalist societies, is driven by funding. The biggest source of that funding for that space research is usually the US government. Which is why, when US presidents release their budget proposals, the space community takes notice. Especially because that budget affects NASA, the largest space funding agency in the world.

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Astronauts Will Soon be Getting a Space Fridge, Keeping Everything Cold in Zero-G

One of the least known of NASA’s funding mechanisms is the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. This program, required by the Baye-Doyle Act of 1980, earmarks a piece of every US Federal agency’s budget (including NASA) for the development of small businesses to commercialize new technologies. NASA’s SBIR program usually focus on commercializing technologies that are useable in space, and many times fund a university doing some work in addition to the small business that received the grant.

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You Thought Black Hole Event Horizons Looked Strange. Check out Binary Black Hole Event Horizons

One of the strangest predictions of general relativity is that gravity can deflect the path of light. The effect was first observed by Arthur Eddington in 1919. While the bending effect of the Sun is small, near a black hole light deflection can be significant. So significant that you need a powerful supercomputer to calculate how light will behave.

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When Stars Get Too Close to Each Other, They Cast Out Interstellar Comets and Asteroids

In October 2017, humanity caught its first-ever glimpse of an interstellar object – a visitor from beyond our solar system – passing nearby the Sun. We named it Oumuamua, and its unusual properties fascinated and confounded astronomers. Less than two years later, amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov found a second interstellar object: a comet-like body that began to disintegrate as it passed within 2 AU of the Sun (1 AU equals the distance from Earth to the Sun).

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SpaceX has Given up Trying to Catch Rocket Fairings. Fishing Them out of the Ocean is Fine

If there is one driving force in the commercial space industry it is economics. The whole concept of reusable booster rocket emphasizes the importance of getting launch costs down. SpaceX, the company leading the charge in trying to bring launch costs down, doesn’t just recover booster rockets however. It also recovers the rocket fairings that hold the payload during launch.

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Fermilab’s Muon g-2 Experiment Finally Gives Particle Physicists a Hint of What Lies Beyond the Standard Model

Since the long-awaited detection of the Higgs Boson in 2012, particle physicists have been probing deeper into the subatomic realm in the hope of investigating beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics. In so doing, they hope to confirm the existence of previously unknown particles and the existence of exotic physics, as well as learning more about how the Universe began.

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Rainbow Airglow over the Azores

Why would the sky glow like a giant repeating rainbow? Airglow. Now air glows all of the time, but it is usually hard to see.A disturbance however – like an approaching storm – may cause noticeable rippling in the Earth’s atmosphere.These gravity waves are oscillations in air analogous to those created when a rock is thrown in calm water.

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Possible life signs in the clouds of Venus

A new analysis of data from the 1978 Pioneer Venus mission, by researchers at Cal Poly Pomona, finds evidence not only for phosphine, but also possible chemical disequilibrium in Venus’ atmosphere, an additional possible sign of biological activity. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/phosphine-disequilibrium-venus-atmosphere-pioneer-venus-1978

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Milky Way season has started!

Spring brings flowers to the landscape and photos of the Milky Way to EarthSky! Enjoy these photos of our galaxy taken in 2021, and keep your eye on this space for more to come! Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/photos-milky-way-galaxy-2021

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Martian hill named to honor Curiosity scientist

NASA has given the name Rafael Navarro Mountain to a hill in Gale Crater on Mars, where the Curiosity rover has been exploring since 2012. Navarro, a mission scientist, died in January 2021 from Covid-19. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-hill-named-rafael-navarro-mountain-curiosity-rover-mission

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Yellowballs offer insights into star formation

The unexpected discovery of yellowballs by citizen scientists – in 2011 and 2012 – is shaking up astronomers’ ideas about how stars and star clusters form. It’s giving scientists a new window into the birth and evolution of young stars. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/yellowballs-star-formation-young-stars-and-clusters

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Is Jupiter a key to finding dark matter?

Jupiter’s large size and cool core make it an excellent target in the search for dark matter. A team of scientists is analyzing gamma-ray data from the Fermi Telescope looking for signs of the elusive substance. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/jupiter-dark-matter-detection-gamma-rays-fermi

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Before-and-after of asteroid Bennu’s sample site

During its final flyby this month, the spacecraft OSIRIS-REx took an image of the location where it collected a sample from asteroid Bennu’s surface. It’ll return to Earth 2 years from now, providing scientists with clues to the creation of our solar system. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/bennu-surface-before-after-photo-osiris-rex-sample

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For the 2nd time, Northrop Grumman catches a satellite in Earth orbit

Northrop Grumman said last week that its Mission Extension Vehicle 2 – a robot spacecraft designed to help prolong the life of satellites in space – successfully docked to a commercial communications satellite. “We are now the only provider of life extension services for satellites,” a company spokesperson said. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.

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Confirmed Muon Wobble Remains Unexplained

How fast do elementary particles wobble? A surprising answer to this seemingly inconsequential question came out of Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, USA in 2001, and indicated that the Standard Model of Particle Physics, adopted widely in physics,is incomplete.Specifically, the muon, a particle with similarities to a heavy electron, has had its relatively large wobble under scrutiny in a series of experiments known as g-2 (gee-minus-two).

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Trojan Mission Lucy Tested its Solar Panels for the First Time. Those Things are Huge

Space missions often have to go where the sun don’t shine. Or at least where it shines very faintly. That is particularly important if the mission draws its power from the sun. Luckily, engineers have a way of dealing with that problem – just make really really big solar panels. That is exactly what they did for Lucy, a mission to visit the Trojan asteroids around Jupiter.

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The Same Technology Could Search for Microbes in Mars Rocks or Under the ice on Europa

Ever since it landed in the Jezero Crater on Feb. 18th, 2021, the Perseverance rover has been prepping its scientific instruments to begin searching for signs of past life on the Red Planet. These include spectrometers that will scan Martian rocks for organics and minerals that form in the presence of water and a caching system that will store samples of Martian soil and rock for retrieval by a future mission.

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Brown Dwarfs can Spin so Fast They Almost Tear Themselves Apart

We tend to image planets as spheres. Held together by gravity, the material of a planet compresses and shifts until gravity and pressure reach a balance point known as hydrostatic equilibrium. Hydrostatic equilibrium is one of the defining characteristics of a planet. If a planet were stationary and of uniform density, then at equilibrium, it would be a perfect sphere.

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Gaia Finds 12 Examples of Einstein Crosses; Galaxies Being Gravitationally Lensed so we see Them Repeated 4 Times

In 1915, Einstein put the finishing touches on his Theory of General Relativity (GR), a revolutionary new hypothesis that described gravity as a geometric property of space and time. This theory remains the accepted description of gravitation in modern physics and predicts that massive objects (like galaxies and galaxy clusters) bend the very fabric of spacetime.

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OSIRIS-REx Did One Last Close Flyby of Asteroid Bennu. It’s Almost Time to Come Home

After more than two years in orbit around asteroid Bennu, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is ready to come home. It’s bringing with it a pristine sample of space rocks that geologists here on Earth are eager to study up close. The sample will arrive in September 2023, but we won’t have to wait nearly that long for new data from OSIRIS-REx.

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Alnitak and the Flame Nebula

What lights up the Flame Nebula? Fifteen hundredlight years away towards the constellation of Orion lies a nebula which, from its glow and darkdust lanes,appears, on the left, like a billowing fire. But fire,the rapid acquisition ofoxygen,is not what makes thisFlame glow. Rather the bright star Alnitak, the easternmost star in theBelt of Orionvisible on the far left, shines energetic light into theFlame that knocks electrons away from the great clouds of hydrogengas that reside there.

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How’s the Weather in Jezero Crater? According to Perseverance: Cold

On February 18th, 2021, the Perseverance rover landed in the Jezero crater on Mars. Shortly thereafter, it powered up some of the scientific instruments it will use to conduct science operations and search for potential evidence of past life. One such instrument is the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA), which turned on for 30 minutes and issued the rover’s first weather report from Mars.

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When Black Holes Collide

What happens when two black holes collide?This extreme scenario occurs in the centers of many merging galaxies and multiple star systems.The featured video shows a computer animation of the final stages of such a merger, while highlighting the gravitational lensing effects that would appear on a background starfield.The black regions indicate the event horizons of the dynamic duo, while a surrounding ring of shifting background stars indicates the position of their combined Einstein ring.

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Primordial Asteroids That Never Suffered Massive Collisions all Seem to be Larger Than 100 km. Why?

Planetary systems form out of the remnant gas and dust of a primordial star. The material collapses into a protoplanetary disk around the young star, and the clumps that form within the disk eventually become planets, asteroids, or other bodies. Although we understand the big picture of planetary formation, we’ve yet to fully understand the details.

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What Would Raindrops be Like on Other Worlds?

Precipitation is much more widespread throughout that solar system than commonly assumed. Obviously it rains water on Earth. But it snows carbon dioxide on Mars, rains methane on Titan, sulfuric acid on Venus, and could potentially rain diamonds on Neptune. The type of material falling out of the sky is almost as varied as the planets themselves.

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Zodiacal Night

An intense band of zodiacal lightis captured in this serene mountain and night skyscape from April 7.The panoramic view was recorded after three hours of hikingfrom a vantage looking west after sunset across the Pyreneesin southern France.At 2838 meters altitude, Mont Valier is the tallest peak near center.In the sky above, thefamiliar stars ofOrion and the northern winterMilky Way are approaching the rugged western horizon.

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Jupiter Could Make an Ideal Dark Matter Detector

So, you want to find dark matter, but you don’t know where to look? A giant planet might be exactly the kind of particle detector you need! Luckily, our solar system just happens to have a couple of them available, and the biggest and closest is Jupiter. Researchers Rebecca Leane (Stanford) and Tim Linden (Stockholm) released a paper this week describing how the gas giant just might hold the key to finding the elusive dark matter.

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Perseverance Takes a Selfie With Ingenuity. It’s Almost Time to fly

Perseverance is having a proud parent moment in this image, looking like it’s waiting with a child at the bus stop on the first day of school. Continue reading “Perseverance Takes a Selfie With Ingenuity. It’s Almost Time to fly” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/150819/perseverance-takes-a-selfie-with-ingenuity-its-almost-time-to-fly/

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Messier 106

Close to the Great Bear(Ursa Major) and surrounded by the stars of theHunting Dogs(Canes Venatici), this celestial wonder wasdiscoveredin 1781 by themetricFrench astronomerPierre Mechain.Later, it was added to the catalog of his friend and colleagueCharles Messier asM106.Modern deep telescopic views reveal it to be anisland universe -a spiral galaxy around 30 thousand light-years across locatedonly about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way.

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Perseverance Captured This Image of a “Rainbow” on Mars, but it’s just a Lens Flare in the Rover’s Camera

Did the Perseverance rover capture a rainbow on Mars? This image, from the rover’s left rear Hazard Camera, sure looks like it. But alas, no. However, film director JJ Abrams would be proud. The rover’s official Twitter account explained it best, that rainbows just aren’t possible on Mars, and this is simply a lens flare: “Rainbows aren’t possible here.

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An Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Discovered Through the Gravitational Lensing of a Gamma-ray Burst

Black holes come in three sizes: small, medium, and large. Small black holes are of stellar mass. They form when a large star collapses at the end of its life. Large black holes lurk in the centers of galaxies and are millions or billions of solar masses. Middle-sized black holes are those between 100 to 100,000 solar masses.

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Here’s a Strange Rock That Perseverance Shot With its Laser

Perseverance has been busy lately. After testing its systems out, taking the first sound recording ever on the Red Planet, and dropping off its helicopter sidekick, now it has the opportunity to work on its primary mission: stare at some rocks. And occasionally zap them with a laser. Continue reading “Here’s a Strange Rock That Perseverance Shot With its Laser”

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Mars Helicopter Survives its First Night on Mars is Getting Ready to Fly

On April 3rd, the Mars Ingenuity helicopter was removed from its carbon-fiber shield on the Perseverance rover’s belly. On Sunday, April 11th, it will make its first attempt at a powered, controlled flight, becoming the first aircraft to operate on another planet. In the meantime, Ingenuity accomplished another major milestone as it survived its first full night on the Martian surface.

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3D Ingenuity

The multicolor, stereo imagingMastcam-Zon the Perseverance roverzoomed in to capturedthis 3D close-up (get out your red/blue glasses) of theMars Ingenuity helicopteron mission sol 45, April 5.That’s only a few sols before thetechnology demonstrating Ingenuitywill attempt to fly in the thin martian atmosphere, makingthe first powered flight on another planet.The historic test flight is plannedfor no earlier than Sunday, April 11.

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Scientists detect X-rays from Uranus

For the first time, scientists have detected X-rays being emitted by the planet Uranus. The discovery was made by a new analysis of data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/x-rays-detected-from-uranus-chandra-x-ray-observatory

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Juno finds a new auroral feature on Jupiter

NASA’s Juno spacecraft – whose mission in orbit around Jupiter was recently extended to 2025 – has been used to discover a rapidly expanding auroral ring at the very fringes of the Jovian magnetosphere. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/jupiter-aurora-new-feature-expanding-emission-ring

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Threads of NGC 1947

Found in far southern skies, deep within the boundaries of theconstellation Dorado,NGC 1947 is some 40 million light-years away.In silhouette against starlight, obscuring lanes of cosmic dustthread across the peculiar galaxy’s bright central regions.Unlike the rotation of stars, gas, and dust tracing the arms ofspiral galaxies, the motions of dust and gas don’t follow the motions of starsin NGC 1947 though.

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Lunar Gateway Will Maintain its Orbit With a 6 kW ion Engine

When NASA sends astronauts back to the Moon as part of the Artemis Program, they will be taking the long view. Rather than being another “footprints and flags” program, the goal is to create a lasting infrastructure that will ensure a “sustained program of lunar exploration.” A major element in this plan is the Lunar Gateway, an orbital habitat that astronauts will use to venture to and from the surface.

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Uranus X-Rays are Probably Reflected Sunlight, but There Could be Another Source as Well

X-rays offer a unique insight into the astronomical world. Invisible to the naked eye, most commonly they are thought of as the semi-dangerous source of medical scans. However, X-ray observatories, like the Chandra X-ray Observatory are capable of seeing astronomical features that no other telescope can. Recently scientists found some of those X-rays coming from a relatively unexpected source – Uranus.

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Mars and the Pleiades Beyond Vinegar Hill

Is this just a lonely tree on an empty hill?To start, perhaps, but look beyond. There, a busy universe may wait to be discovered.First, physically, to the left of the tree, is the planet Mars.The red planet, which is the new home to NASA’s Perseverance rover, remains visible this month at sunset above the western horizon.

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Is Dark Matter Responsible for Extra Gamma Rays Coming From the Center of the Milky Way?

For years astronomers have puzzled over a strange excess of gamma rays coming from the galactic center. Annihilating dark matter has always been a tantalizing explanation, and new research claims that it’s the best answer. Continue reading “Is Dark Matter Responsible for Extra Gamma Rays Coming From the Center of the Milky Way?

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There are new Stars Forming Near the Core of the Milky Way Despite the Harsh Environment

The central core of our galaxy is not a friendly place for star formation, and yet new observations have revealed almost four dozen newly-forming systems. These results challenge our understanding of the complicated physics of our galactic heart. Continue reading “There are new Stars Forming Near the Core of the Milky Way Despite the Harsh Environment”

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An image of a piece of the cosmic web

An international team of astronomers has mapped a piece of the cosmic web without using bright quasars for the first time. They did it by turning a powerful instrument on a single region of the sky for hundreds of hours. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/astronomers-map-a-piece-of-the-cosmic-web-muse

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Veil Nebula: Wisps of an Exploded Star

Wisps like this are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. About 7,000 years ago that star exploded in asupernova leaving theVeil Nebula.At the time, the expanding cloudwas likely as bright as a crescent Moon, remainingvisible for weeks to people living at the dawn ofrecorded history. Today, the resulting supernova remnant, also known as the Cygnus Loop, has faded and isnow visible only through a small telescopedirectedtoward theconstellation of the Swan(Cygnus).

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Roman Telescope Could Turn up Over 100,000 Planets Through Microlensing

Recently we reported on a haul of 2,200 new exoplanets from the 2 year primary mission of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). But that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of exoplanet hunting. If calculations from NASA are correct the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could detect up to 100,000 new exoplanets when it launches in 2025.

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InSight Detects Two Significant Quakes from the Cerberus Fossae Region on Mars

NASA’s InSight lander felt the distant rumble of two major ‘marsquakes’ in March, originating from a region near the Martian equator known as the Cerberus Fossae. Registering magnitudes of 3.1 and 3.3 on March 7th and March 18th respectively, the quakes cement the Cerberus Fossae’s reputation as one of the most geologically active places on the Red Planet today.

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A new way to see Inside Neutron Stars

Imagine trying to study an object light-years away that is less than 20 kilometers in diameter. The object is so dense that it’s made of material that can’t exist naturally on Earth. This is the challenge astronomers face when studying neutron stars, so they have to devise ingenious ways to do it.

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In, Through, and Beyond Saturn's Rings

Four moons are visible on the featured image – can you find them all?First – and farthest in the background – is Titan, the largest moon of Saturn and one of the larger moons in the Solar System. The dark feature across the top of this perpetually cloudy world is the north polar hood.

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Interstellar Comet Borisov is so Pristine, it’s Probably Never Been Close to a Star Before

By comparing our local Comet Hale-Bopp to the interstellar visitor 2I/Borisov, a team of astronomers have concluded that the interloper is perhaps one of the most pristine comets we’ve ever seen. Continue reading “Interstellar Comet Borisov is so Pristine, it’s Probably Never Been Close to a Star Before” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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A Lake in a Martian Crater was Once Filled by Glacial Runoff

All across the Martian surface, there are preserved features that tell the story of what Mars once looked like. These include channels that were carved by flowing water, delta fans where water deposited sediment over time, and lakebeds where clay and hydrated minerals are found. In addition to telling us more about Mars’ past, the study of these features can tell us about how Mars made the transition to what it is today.

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Satellites Have Brightened the Skies by About 10% Across the Entire Planet

New research has found that as the number of satellites in Earth orbit continues to increase, their accumulated light pollution will brighten the night sky – making it much harder to do fundamental astronomy. Continue reading “Satellites Have Brightened the Skies by About 10% Across the Entire Planet” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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TESS has Found 2,200 Potential Exoplanets so far

Exoplanetology has been on a tear recently. This is largely due to an abundance of data collected by a new generation of satellites, one of which is the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Now the project has reached a new milestone with another release of data – 2,200 planet candidates collected, far surpassing the 1,600 expected candidates in the mission’s first two years.

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Ingenuity on Sol 39

The Mars Ingenuity Helicopter,all four landing legs down,was captured here on sol 39 (March 30) slung beneath the belly ofthe Perseverance rover.The near ground level view is a mosaic of imagesfrom the WATSON camera on the rover’s SHERLOC robotic arm.Near the center of the frame the experimental helicopteris suspended just a few centimeters above the martian surface.

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If Astronomers see Isoprene in the Atmosphere of an Alien World, There’s a Good Chance There’s Life There

It is no exaggeration to say that the study of extrasolar planets has exploded in recent decades. To date, 4,375 exoplanets have been confirmed in 3,247 systems, with another 5,856 candidates awaiting confirmation. In recent years, exoplanet studies have started to transition from the process of discovery to one of characterization.

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In a Comprehensive new Test, the EmDrive Fails to Generate any Thrust

The EmDrive is a hypothetical rocket that proponents claim can generate thrust with no exhaust. This would violate all known physics. In 2016, a team at NASA’s Eagleworks lab claimed to measure thrust from an EmDrive device, the news of which caused quite a stir. The latest attempt to replicate the shocking results has resulted in a simple answer: the Eagleworks measurement was from heating of the engine mount, not any new physics.

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Clear Signs of Recent Erosion on Mars

Erosion can take many forms. Most commonly known is water wearing away the sides of creeks or lakes. But wind can erode just as effectively, especially if it carries dust particles that can eat away at otherwise solid objects. While this wind-driven process is most commonly observed on Earth, it plays a role in the history of most other rocky bodies that have an atmosphere.

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Mangroves from space: 30 years of satellite images are helping us understand how climate change threatens these valuable forests

Mangroves play a crucial role in the ecosystem thanks to the dizzying array of plants, animals and birds they feed, house and protect. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/mangroves-from-space-30-years-of-satellite-images-are-helping-us-understand-how-climate-change-threatens-these-valuable-forests

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Interstellar visitor Borisov could be 1st truly pristine comet yet seen

Comet 2I/Borisov is the 2nd known object to pass near our sun from outside our solar system. Its 2019 pass near our sun might have been its first-ever interaction with a star. If so, it’s among the most pristine, or unspoiled, objects yet known. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/2i-borisov-pristine-comet-interstellar-visitor

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Is the Hyades star cluster being destroyed?

Data from ESA’s Gaia star-mapping satellite have revealed tantalizing evidence that the famous V-shaped Hyades – nearest star cluster to our sun – is being disrupted. The culprit may be a suspected population of dark matter sub-halos. Wow! Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/hyades-being-destroyed-gaia-dark-matter

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A new Goldilocks black hole

Astronomers have detected a “Goldilocks” or intermediate-mass black hole. It’s not small, not supermassive – but right in the middle – and it “sheds light” on how the supermassive black holes got so large. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/intermediate-black-hole-gravitational-lens-gamma-ray-burst

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NGC 3521: Galaxy in a Bubble

Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away,toward theconstellation Leo.Relatively bright in planet Earth’s sky, NGC 3521 iseasily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked byamateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies,like M66 and M65.It’s hard to overlook inthis colorful cosmic portrait, though.Spanning some 50,000 light-years the galaxy sportscharacteristicpatchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust, pink star formingregions, and clusters of young, blue stars.

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A Billion Years From now There won’t be Much Oxygen in the Earth’s Atmosphere

Breathe it while you still can. A new research study forecasts the future of oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere and finds grim news. As the sun continues to warm, carbon dioxide will bind to rocks. This will starve plants, and in as little as a billion years they won’t be able to produce enough oxygen to keep our planet habitable (for us).

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There are Ocean Currents Under the ice on Enceladus

Underneath its shell of ice, the globe-spanning ocean of Enceladus isn’t sitting still. Instead, it might possibly host massive ocean currents, driven by changes in salinity. Continue reading “There are Ocean Currents Under the ice on Enceladus” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/150749/there-are-ocean-currents-under-the-ice-on-enceladus/

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TESS’s exoplanet catalog grows to over 2,200 worlds

When the TESS planet hunter launched nearly 3 years ago, some 4,000 exoplanets were known. NASA confirmed in late March that TESS has discovered over 2,200 additional exoplanet candidates orbiting distant stars. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/over-2200-exoplanets-found-so-far-tess-space-telescope

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Rocket Launch as Seen from the Space Station

Have you ever seen a rocket launch – from space? A close inspection of the featured time-lapse video will reveal a rocket rising to Earth orbit as seen from the International Space Station (ISS). The Russian Soyuz-FG rocket was launched in November 2018 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying a Progress MS-10 (also 71P) module to bring needed supplies to the ISS.

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The Debris Cloud From a Supernova Shows an Imprint of the Actual Explosion

Computer models are continuing to play an increasing role in scientific discovery. Everything from the first moments after the Big Bang to potential for life to form on other planets has been the target of some sort of computer model. Now scientists from the RIKEN Astrophysical Big Bang Laboratory are turning this almost ubiquitous tool to a very violent event – Type Ia supernovae.

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Simulating the Universe a Trillionth of a Second After the Big Bang

The Big Bang remains the best way to explain what happened at the beginning of the Universe. However, the incredible energies flowing during the early part of the bang are almost incomprehensive to our everyday experience. Luckily, computers aren’t so attached to normal human ways of thinking and have long been used to model the early universe right after the Bang.

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Seen From Space, Iceland’s new Volcano Lights up the Island at Night

You’ve probably seen stunning images of the night side of the Earth from space. Most people have seen the veritable constellations of city lights scattered familiarly across the continents, separated by wide oceans of darkness. You very well may have seen some stunning videos from the ISS showing the dynamic and mesmerizing ribbons of the polar aurorae and the even more frenetic flashes of nighttime lightning storms.

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Maybe Mars Didn’t Lose its Water After All. It’s Still Trapped on the Planet

Roughly 4 billion years ago, Mars looked a lot different than it does today. For starters, its atmosphere was thicker and warmer, and liquid water flowed across its surface. This included rivers, standing lakes, and even a deep ocean that covered much of the northern hemisphere. Evidence of this warm, watery past has been preserved all over the planet in the form of lakebeds, river valleys, and river deltas.

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Gorgeous NASA photo shows a volcano eruption in Iceland at night

sing data from NASA’s Landsat satellite, NASA Earth Observatory visualizers have revealed how lava from a recent volcano eruption lights up the clouds from below. Data from NASA’s Landsat satellite shows what a volcano eruption looks like from above the clouds. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/iceland-volcano-eruption-nighttime-satellite-view

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Selene III: Starting off an analog lunar mission with exploding bombs — Commander's report: Day 3

he Selene III analog lunar mission started with a literal “bang” when the crew decided to disarm bombs in their spare time. Commander Musilova reflects on each crew’s ways of bonding together. The Selene III analog lunar mission started with a literal “bang” when the crew decided to disarm bombs in their spare time.

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M87s Central Black Hole in Polarized Light

To play on Carl Sagan’s famous words “If you wish to make black hole jets, you must first create magnetic fields.“The featured image represents the detected intrinsic spin direction (polarization) of radio waves. The polarizationi is produced by the powerful magnetic field surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of elliptical galaxy M87.

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Latest Starship Prototype SN11 Explodes in mid-air, Raining Debris on the Launch Site

Space exploration sure is hard, huh? Luckily, it’s an iterative process, where engineers test and test and test again to work out all the bugs in advance. At least, that’s what we remind ourselves when the prototype goes “kaboom!” Earlier today, the SN11 joins its predecessors by being the fourth Starship prototype to conduct a successful flight test and then explode while attempting to make a landing (or shortly thereafter).

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One Idea for a Lunar Lava Tube Explorer

Lava tubes on the moon are some of the most interesting, and difficult, places to explore in the solar system. But if humanity plans to eventually have a permanent presence on the moon, the more knowledge we have about the cave systems created by those lava tubes the better. That’s why ESA’s current focus on lunar cave exploration is so important, and another good reason to take note when it releases more information about some of the technologies leading that push.

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LEGO Announces the Space Shuttle Discovery and Hubble Edition

When I saw the opportunity to write about a new Lego set featuring the Space Shuttle Discovery and Hubble, I immediately went to my 7 year old son, who is obsessed with Legos, and asked him if he thought I should write about it. He immediately agreed, so now I have the pleasure of introducing UT’s audience to one of Lego’s newest sets – #10283 – NASA Space Shuttle Discovery.

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Striking new image of M106

This spectacular image features spiral galaxy Messier 106 and its diminutive neighbors, as well as a dense field of background galaxies and foreground stars. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/striking-new-image-spiral-galaxy-m106-messier106

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Red Sprite Lightning over the Andes

What are those red filaments in the sky?They are a rarely seen form of lightning confirmed only about 30 years ago: red sprites.Recent research has shown that following a powerful positivecloud-to-ground lightning strike,red sprites may start as 100-meter balls ofionizedair that shoot down from about80-km high at 10 percent the speed of light.

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This Time NASA’s SLS Hotfire Goes the Full 8 Minutes

When NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) is fully integrated, assembled, and finished with testing, it will be the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V that carried the Apollo astronauts to the Moon. To get it there, NASA has been conducting a testing campaign known as the Green Run, an 8-step assessment that culminates in a test-firing of all four of the Core’s RS-25 engines (aka.

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Careful Calculations Show That Earth is Safe From Asteroid Apophis for at Least 100 Years

If you’re looking for doomsday, you can forget about asteroid Apophis. The latest radar observations have effectively ruled out any possibility of this near-Earth object (NEO) hitting Earth for the foreseeable future. Continue reading “Careful Calculations Show That Earth is Safe From Asteroid Apophis for at Least 100 Years” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Mars’ missing water might still be in its crust

A lot, or even most, of Mars’ ancient water remains trapped inside the planet’s crust instead of being lost to space, according to a new study from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-water-soaked-into-crust-not-leaked-into-space

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M64: The Evil Eye Galaxy

Who knows what evil lurks in the eyes of galaxies?The Hubble knows – or in the case of spiral galaxy M64 – is helping to find out.Messier 64, also known as the Evil Eye or Sleeping Beauty Galaxy, may seem to have evil in its eye because all of its stars rotate in the same direction as the interstellar gas in the galaxy’s central region, but in the opposite direction in the outer regions.

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SuitSat 1: A Spacesuit Floats Free

A spacesuit floated away from the International Space Station 15 years ago, but no investigation was conducted. Everyone knew that it was pushed by the space station crew. Dubbed Suitsat-1, the unneeded Russian Orlan spacesuit filled mostly with old clothes was fitted with a faint radio transmitter and released to orbit the Earth.

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Is ‘Oumuamua a frozen piece of an exoPluto?

A new theory about ‘Oumuamua suggests the weird object that passed through our solar system in 2017 was a remnant of a Pluto-like world from another solar system. As one scientist said, “‘Oumuamua may be the first piece of an exoplanet brought to us.” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/oumuamua-piece-of-nitrogen-ice-from-pluto-like-exoplanet

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The Event Horizon Telescope has Revealed the Magnetic Field Lines Around M87's Central Black Hole

In 2019 astronomers captured the first direct image of a black hole. It was an image of the supermassive black hole at the heart of M87. And when many folks saw it, their reaction was “that’s it?” Which is understandable, given that the image is just a blurry, donut-shaped smudge. It isn’t much to look at.

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Exploring the Antennae

Some 60 million light-years away in the southerlyconstellationCorvus, two large galaxies are colliding.Stars in the two galaxies, cataloged asNGC 4038 and NGC 4039,very rarely collide in the course of theponderous cataclysm that lasts for hundreds of millions of years.But the galaxies’ largeclouds of molecular gas and dustoften do, triggeringfurious episodes of star formationinear the center of thecosmic wreckage.

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Exploring the Moon’s Shadowed Regions Using Beamed Energy

In less than three years, astronauts will return to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. As part of the Artemis Program, the purpose is not only to send crewed missions back to the lunar surface to explore and collect samples. This time around, there’s also the goal of establishing vital infrastructure (like the Lunar Gateway and a Base Camp) that will allow for “sustained lunar exploration.

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Newly Forming Stars Don’t Blast Away Material as Previously Believed. So Why Do They Stop Growing?

We thought we understood how stars are formed. It turns out, we don’t. Not completely, anyway. A new study, recently conducted using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, is sending astronomers back to the drawing board to rewrite the accepted model of stellar formation. Continue reading “Newly Forming Stars Don’t Blast Away Material as Previously Believed.

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New image of M87’s supermassive black hole

The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration released a new image of the supermassive black hole in the center of massive galaxy M87 on March 24, 2021. The image shows the signatures of a magnetic field. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/new-image-m87s-black-hole-magnetic-field

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The Medusa Nebula

Braided and serpentine filaments of glowing gassuggest this nebula’s popular name, The Medusa Nebula.Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an oldplanetary nebulasome 1,500 light-years away in the constellation Gemini.Like its mythologicalnamesake, the nebula is associated with a dramatic transformation.The planetarynebula phase represents a final stage intheevolution of low mass stars like the sunas they transform themselves fromred giantsto hot white dwarfstars and in the process shrug off their outer layers.

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A Very Powerful Solar Storm Hit the Earth Back in 1582

“A great fire appeared in the sky to the North, and lasted three nights,” wrote a Portuguese scribe in early March, 1582. Across the globe in feudal Japan, observers in Kyoto noted the same fiery red display in their skies too. Similar accounts of strange nighttime lights were recorded in Leipzig, Germany; Yecheon, South Korea; and a dozen other cities across Europe and East Asia.

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Volcanism created a 2nd atmosphere on this Earth-sized exoplanet

For the first time, scientists have found evidence for a secondary atmosphere on an exoplanet, created by volcanism beneath the surface. The planet, GJ 1132 b, is thought to have once been a sub-Neptune, but now is a rocky world the size of Earth. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/volcanism-on-earth-sized-exoplanet-gj-1132-b-created-a-secondary-atmosphere-hubble-space-telescope

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Curiosity: Sol 3048

BeforePerseverance there was Curiosity.In fact, the Curiosity rover accomplished the first sky crane maneuvertouchdown on Mars on April 5, 2012.March 2, 2021 marked Curiosity’s 3,048th martian day operatingon the surface of the Red Planet.This 360 degree panoramafromsol 3048 is a mosaic of 149 framesfrom Curiosity’s Mastcam above the rover’s deck.It includes 23 frames oficy, thin, high cloudsdrifting through the martian sky.

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Gravitational Lenses Could Allow a Galaxy-Wide Internet

As Carl Sagan once said, “The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.” And our first emissaries to the stars will be robotic probes. These interstellar probes will be largely autonomous, but we will want to communicate with them. At the very least we will want them to phone home and tell us what they’ve discovered.

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Milky Way mosaic took 12 years, 1250 hours

Through 12 years of photographing and stitching together individual astrophotography images, Finnish astrophotographer J-P Mestavainio has created a 1.7 gigapixel panorama of our Milky Way galaxy. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/milky-way-panorama-metsavainio-astrophotography

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Aurorae and Lightning on Jupiter

Why does so much of Jupiter’s lightning occur near its poles?Similar to Earth, Jupiter experiences both aurorae and lightning.Different from Earth, though, Jupiter’s lightning usually occurs near itspoles – while much of Earth’s lightning occurs near its equator.To help understand the difference, NASA’s Juno spacecraft, currently orbiting Jupiter, has observed numerous aurora and lightning events.

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Perseverance Begins its Science on Mars With a Laser zap

Perseverance has already made its mark on scientific history by taking the first audio recording ever on Mars. But the instrument with the microphone, known as the SuperCam, wasn’t done there. It has plenty of other science to do, and recently it started running through some more preliminary tests. One of those tests happened to involve blasting a rock with a laser – while taking an audio recording of it.

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Scientists unlock the 'Cosmos' on the Antikythera Mechanism, the world's first computer

Scientists may have finally made a complete digital model for the Cosmos panel of a 2,000-year-old mechanical device called the Antikythera mechanism that’s believed to be the world’s first computer. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/news/scientists-unlock-the-cosmos-on-the-antikythera-mechanism-the-worlds-first-computer

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Mars over Duddo Stone Circle

Why are these large stones here?One the more famous stone circles is the Duddo Five Stones of Northumberland, England. Set in the open near the top of a modest incline, a short hike across empty fields will bring you to unusual human-sized stones that are unlike anything surrounding them.The grooved, pitted, and deeply weathered surfaces of the soft sandstones are consistent with being placed about 4000 years ago – but placed for reasons now unknown.

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Rocks and Other Features at Perseverance’s Landing Site are Getting Navajo Names

On Feb. 18th, 2021, after spending six months in transit, the Perseverance rover landed in the Jezero Crater on Mars. By March 4th, it began driving short distances and calibrating its instruments in preparation for all the science operations it will conduct. Most recently, Perseverance began studying its first scientific target, a rock that has been named “Máaz” – the Navajo word for “Mars.

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New Binocular Nova Cas 2021 Flares in Cassiopeia

A ‘new star’ erupted into visibility over the past weekend, and continues to brighten. It began, as all modern astronomical alerts seem to, with one tweet, then two. Early on the morning of Friday, March 19th, we started seeing word that a nova was spotted in the constellation of Cassiopeia the Queen, near its border with Cepheus.

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Mont Mercou on Mars

Here are a few stunning views of the Curiosity Rover’s current location, Mont Mercou in Gale Crater on Mars. This towering outcrop provides a great look at layered sedimentary rock structures. On Earth, it’s common to find layered rock like the ones within this cliff face, especially where there were once lakes.

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From Auriga to Orion

What’s up in the sky from Auriga to Orion?Many of the famous stars and nebulas in this region were captured on 34 separate images, taking over 430 hours of exposure, and digitally combined to reveal the featured image.Starting on the far upper left, toward the constellation of Auriga (the Chariot driver), is the picturesque Flaming Star Nebula (IC 405).

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More Audio from Perseverance: the Crunch of its Wheels on the Martian Regolith

In absence of (yet) being able to step foot on Mars, we have robotic vicarious experiences through our rovers including Perseverance which landed this past February 18th. In addition to photos we’ve collected from the surface over the decades, our ever-improving data connection to Mars made it possible to see video from Perseverance’s landing.

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Hubble Space Telescope back out of safe mode, working to resume normal operations

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope went into a protective safe mode early March 7, after on onboard software program failed during a guide star acquisition. NASA has now announced that spacecraft was moved out of safe mode, into a pre-science state with the plan of returning to normal operations. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.

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Remembering NASA Flight Director Glynn Lunney, 1936-2021

Legendary NASA flight director Glynn Lunney has passed away at age 84. Lunney played a key role in the early days of NASA, helping to create the concept and operation of what we now reverently know as Mission Control. His calm decisiveness was lauded during the Gemini and Apollo missions he guided as flight director, and his leadership was especially pivotal in bringing the crew of Apollo 13 safely back to Earth.

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Perseverance’s Landing Site Named for Octavia Butler

On March 4th, 2021, the Perseverance rover began driving from its landing site on Mars. During this drive, the rover covered 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) and conducted some basic maneuvers and instrument tests. In keeping with a NASA tradition where mission controllers give unofficial nicknames to various geological features, the team also consecrated the landing site by naming it after a famous science fiction author.

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The Antikythera Mechanism

No one knew that 2,000 years ago, the technology existed to build such a device. The Antikythera mechanism, pictured, is now widely regarded as the first computer.Found at the bottom of the sea aboard a decaying Greek ship, its complexity prompted decades of study, and even today some of its functions likely remain unknown.

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Work Begins on Cleaning up Arecibo. The job Could Cost $50 Million

The collapse of Arecibo’s radio telescope was a devastating blow to the radio astronomy community. On December 1st, the suspended instrument platform came crashing down, destroying a large part of the receiver dish and the towers supporting the platform, as well as causing minor damage to some outlying buildings. Now the National Science Foundation (NSF), the government agency responsible for operating Arecibo is starting to pick up the pieces to figure out what’s next for the site, as they detailed in a brief report to Congress recently.

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The Leo Trio

This popular group leaps into the early evening sky around the Marchequinox andthenorthern hemisphere spring.Famous as theLeo Triplet,the three magnificent galaxies found in the prominentconstellation Leogather here in one astronomical field of view.Crowd pleasers when imaged with even modesttelescopes, they can be introduced individually asNGC 3628 (right), M66 (upper left), and M65 (bottom).

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There Could be Magnetic Monopoles Trapped in the Earth's Magnetosphere

Electricity and magnetism have a lot in common. They are connected by the unified theory of electromagnetism, and are in many ways two sides of the same coin. Both can exert forces on charges and magnetic fields. A changing electric field creates a magnetic field and vice versa. Elementary particles can possess electric and magnetic properties.

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China and Russia will be building a moon base together

China and Russia are cooperating in plans to build a lunar research outpost on the moon. The China National Space Administration and Roscosmos – Russia’s space agency – made the announcement in a memorandum dated March 9, 2021. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/china-russia-will-be-building-moon-base-together-march9-21

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Oumuamua is Probably Very Similar to Pluto, Just From Another Star System

In 2017, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) made history with the detection of a mysterious object called Oumuamua (Hawaiian for scout). Unlike countless other small objects that Pan-STARRS had detected before, Oumuamua seemed to originate from beyond the solar system. The first known interstellar object detected in the solar system, Oumuamua, with its odd trajectory, strange shape, and unusual acceleration, led to a flurry of activity in the astronomical community and an avalanche of wild claims of extraterrestrial space ships from various fringes of the media.

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Oumuamua Isn’t an Alien Probe, Because Aliens can Learn Everything They Need About us With Telescopes

In the Fall of 2017, the first known interstellar object passed through the Solar System, triggering a revolution in astronomy. Because of the amonolous nature of the object, astronomers from all over the world were at a loss to explain what it was. Neither comet, nor asteroid, nor any other conventional object appeared to fit the bill, leading to all kinds of “exotic” explanations.

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Central Lagoon in Infrared

Stars fill this infrared view, spanning 4 light-years across the centerof the Lagoon Nebula.Visible light imagesshow the glowing gas and obscuring dust clouds thatdominate the scene.But this infrared image,constructed fromHubble Space Telescope data,peers closer to the heart of the active star-forming region revealingnewborn stars scattered within,against a crowded field of background starstoward the center of our Milky Way galaxy.

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Lightning Strikes Helped Life get an Early Start on Earth

So, you want to create life? You’re going to need some ingredients first. On Earth four billion years ago, you might find some of those ingredients in the impact craters of asteroid strikes (as long as you don’t get blown up in the blast yourself). A safer place to look, according to new research from the University of Leeds, might be in the sites of lightning strikes.

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Perseverance’s Landing Seen in Full Color, Thanks to Citizen Science

A month on, we’re all still buzzing about the Perseverance rover’s perfect landing in Jezero Crater on Mars, back on February 18, 2021. Over the past few weeks, NASA has released more stunning imagery and footage of the landing, and since then the world-wide cadre of citizen scientists and image editing enthusiasts have been springing into action to enhance and augment all the incredible scenes captured by Perseverance’s collection of high-resolution cameras.

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Stardust in the Perseus Molecular Cloud

Clouds of stardust drift through this deep skyscape,across thePerseus molecular cloudsome 850 light-years away.Dusty nebulae reflecting light from embedded young starsstand out in the nearly 2 degree wide telescopic field of view.With a characteristic bluish colorreflection nebula NGC 1333 is atcenter,vdB 13 at top right,with rare yellowish reflection nebulavdB 12 near the top of the frame.

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Is there life on Mars today?

SETI’s Nathalie Cabrol believes a widespread biosphere exists on Mars that has migrated underground over the past few billion years. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-underground-biosphere-seti-nathalie-cabrol

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Frosty Sand Dunes on Mars

Sand dunes on Mars are fascinating. They shift and move in different ways than they do on Earth, and they can grow to much more immense sizes than on our own planet. Several conditions contribute to the gigantic sand dunes and large fields of dunes that can form on the Red Planet, including its low gravity and air pressure.

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What if Planet Nine is a baby black hole?

The hypothetical Planet Nine may not be a planet but rather a small black hole that might be detectable from the theoretical radiation emitted from its edge, so-called Hawking radiation. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/planet-nine-little-black-hole.html

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The Surface of Venus from Venera 13

If you could stand on Venus – what would you see? Pictured is the view from Venera 13, a robotic Soviet lander which parachuted and air-braked down through the thick Venusian atmosphere in March of 1982.The desolate landscape it saw included flat rocks, vast empty terrain, and a featureless sky above Phoebe Regio near Venus’ equator.

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Highest-energy cosmic rays originate in star clusters, not supernovae

New research solves a decades-long riddle: from where do the highest-energy cosmic rays originate? Even supernovae – exploding stars – can’t explain them. Now it seems these sorts of cosmic rays may come from clusters of young, hot, massive stars. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/highest-energy-cosmic-rays-originate-in-star-clusters-not-supernovae

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It Turns Out That the World’s Oldest Impact Crater Isn’t an Impact Crater

In early 2012, an international research team surveying parts of southwestern Greenland announced that they had discovered the oldest impact crater ever discovered on Earth, estimated at 3.3 billion years old. Now, new research shows that the strange geological feature – known as the Maniitsoq structure – is probably the result of Earthly geological processes, rather than a meteorite impact.

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A Titan Mission Could Refuel on Site and Return a Sample to Earth

This decade promises to be an exciting time for space exploration! Already, the Perseverance rover landed on Mars and began conducting science operations. Later this year, the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), and Lucy spacecraft (the first mission to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids) will launch. Before the decade is out, missions will also be sent to Europa and Titan to extend the search for signs of life in our Solar System.

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Life materials found on asteroid Itokawa

Scientists have confirmed the presence of water and organic materials that are essential for life on the surface of asteroid Itokawa. The samples of rock and dust were returned to Earth by the Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft in 2010. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/organic-materials-asteroid-itokawa-hayabusa-spacecraft-astrobiology

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IC 1318 The Butterfly Nebula in Gas and Dust

In the constellation of the swan near the nebula of the pelican lies the gas cloud of the butterfly next to a star known as the hen. That star, given the proper name Sadr, is just to the right of the featured frame, but the central Butterfly Nebula, designated IC 1318, is shown in high resolution.

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Wormholes Could Allow Travel Across the Universe, as Long as Your Spacecraft is Microscopic

In my last post, I talked about the idea of warp drive and whether it might one day be possible. Today I’ll talk about another faster-than-light trick: wormholes. Continue reading “Wormholes Could Allow Travel Across the Universe, as Long as Your Spacecraft is Microscopic” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/150536/wormholes-could-allow-travel-across-the-universe-as-long-as-your-spacecraft-is-microscopic/

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There Should be About 7 Interstellar Objects Passing Through the Inner Solar System Every Year

In October 19th, 2017, the first interstellar object ever detected flew past Earth on its way out of the Solar System. Less than two years later, a second object was detected, an easily-identified interstellar comet designated as 2I/Borisov. The appearance of these two objects verified earlier theoretical work that concluded that interstellar objects (ISOs) regularly enter our Solar System.

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A Flag Shaped Aurora over Sweden

It appeared, momentarily, like a 50-km tall banded flag. In mid-March of 2015, an energetic Coronal Mass Ejection directed toward a clear magnetic channel to Earth led to one of the more intense geomagnetic storms of recent years.A visual result was wide spread auroras being seen over many countries near Earth’s magnetic poles.

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A Planet Lost Its Atmosphere, So Its Volcanoes Made It a New One

A red-dwarf star called Gliese 1132 or GJ 1132 for short (astronomers and their fun nicknames!) smolders on some 41 light-years from the sun in the southern constellation Vela, just a few degrees away from the southern cross. In 2015, astronomers using the MEarth South telescope array at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile found an Earth-sized planet orbiting extremely close to the little red star.

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SuperCam Target on Maaz

What’s the sound ofone laser zapping?There’s no need to consult a Zen master to find out,just listen to the firstacoustic recording of laser shots on Mars.On Perseverance mission sol 12 (March 2) the SuperCam instrument atopthe rover’s mast zapped a rock dubbed Ma’az 30 times from a range ofabout 3.1 meters.

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The sounds of space images

Via sonification, you can listen to the sounds of space images, as observed at different frequencies. Listen to videos featuring some of these orchestral pieces here! Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/sonification-giving-sounds-to-space-data

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View a map of 25,000 supermassive black holes

Hours of radio observations have enabled scientists to create a map of the locations in Earth’s night sky of 25,000 supermassive black holes. These black holes are very far away, occupying the cores of distant galaxies. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/map-25000-supermassive-black-holes-video

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Measuring the Temperatures of Red Giants is Actually Pretty Tricky

Red giant stars are, well, red and giant. But astronomers have always had difficulty estimating their temperatures, due to their complex and turbulent atmospheres. Without an accurate gauge of their temperatures, it’s difficult to tell when they will end their lives in gigantic supernova explosions. Now a team of astronomers have developed a more effective technique for taking the temperature of red giants, based on the amount of iron in the stars.

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China and Russia Will Be Partners in a Lunar Research Station

There are many paths to the Moon, and not all of them go through the Lunar Gateway. This week, the heads of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) and the China National Space Administration (CNSA) signed an agreement to cooperate on a Lunar research station of their own. Continue reading “China and Russia Will Be Partners in a Lunar Research Station”

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The Giant Magellan Telescope’s 6th Mirror has Just Been Cast. One More to Go

By 2029, the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) in northern Chile will begin collecting its first light from the cosmos. As part of a new class of next-generation instruments known as “extremely large telescopes” (ELTs), the GMT will combine the power of sophisticated primary mirrors, flexible secondary mirrors, adaptive optics (AOs), and spectrometers to see further and with greater detail than any optical telescopes that came before.

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Messier 81

One of the brightest galaxies in planet Earth’s sky is similar in sizeto our Milky Way Galaxy: big,beautifulMessier 81.Also known as NGC 3031 or Bode’s galaxy for its 18th century discoverer,this grand spiralcan be found toward the northern constellation of Ursa Major, the Great Bear.The sharp,detailed telescopic view reveals M81’s bright yellow nucleus, bluespiral arms, pinkish starforming regions, and sweepingcosmic dust lanes.

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Researchers Discover the Source of the Sun’s Most Dangerous High-Energy Particles

Sometimes the sun spits out high-energy particles which slam into the Earth, potentially disrupting our sensitive electronics. New research has found that these particles originate in the plasma of the sun itself, and are trapped there by strong magnetic fields. When those fields weaken, the particles blast out. Continue reading “Researchers Discover the Source of the Sun’s Most Dangerous High-Energy Particles”

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What's the Connection Between Stellar-Mass Black Holes and Dark Matter?

Imagine you are a neutron star. You’re happily floating in space, too old to fuse nuclei in your core anymore, but the quantum pressure of your neutrons and quarks easily keeps you from collapsing under your own weight. You look forward to a long stellar retirement of gradually cooling down. Then one day you are struck by a tiny black hole.

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The Galápagos Islands From Space

The Galápagos Islands hold an honored place in science history. I often wonder, if Charles Darwin could have seen this volcanic archipelago from this vantage point – a satellite view – how might have that aided or changed his research on evolution? Continue reading “The Galápagos Islands From Space” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Vega Might Have a Planet

Vega is one of the brightest and best known stars in the night (or even twilight) sky. Located in the constellation Lyra, it is only 25 light years from Earth, and about twice our Sun’s mass. And now, astronomers might have found one of the hottest known planets orbiting it extraordinarily quickly.

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Organic Material Found on an Asteroid Sample Returned by Hayabusa 1

Panspermia is an idea that has been around for a long time. It was first mentioned in the 5th century BC by Anaxagoras, one of the most prominent pre-Socratic philosophers. The problem with the theory is that there’s never really been any evidence to back it up. That lack of evidence has changed dramatically in the last 20 or so years, and recently more data has been added to that dataset.

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Microbes Found That Survive on the by-Products of Radioactive Decay

In addition to investigating the big questions about life in our Universe (origins, evolution, distribution, etc.), one of the chief aims of astrobiologists is to characterize extraterrestrial environments to determine if life could exist there. However, there are still unresolved questions about the range of conditions under which life can survive and thrive.

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The Oldest Stars Help Tell us how big the Universe is

Astronomers are struggling to understand the discrepancies when measuring the expansion rate of the universe with different methods, and are desperate for any creative idea to break the tension. A new method involving some of the oldest stars in the universe could just do the trick. Continue reading “The Oldest Stars Help Tell us how big the Universe is”

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Hubble Space Telescope enters safe mode after unexpected glitch

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope went into a protective safe mode early March 7, after on onboard software program failed during a guide star acquisition. However, mission experts seem confident it will recover soon. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/hubble-space-telescope-enters-safe-mode-after-unexpected-glitch-march7-2021

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Move Over, Electron Rocket Lab Introduces Its New Neutron Rocket

Peter Beck announces an addition to the Rocket Lab family, with the Neutron rocket. Private space launch company Rocket Lab revealed that it will go where it promised not to, both here on Earth and in space. Continue reading “Move Over, Electron: Rocket Lab Introduces Its New Neutron Rocket” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Zodiacal Light and Mars

Just after sunset on March 7, a faint band of light stillreaches above the western horizon in this serene,rural Illinois, night skyscape.Taken from an old farmstead, the luminous glow is zodiacal light,prominent in the west after sunset during planet Earth’snorthern hemisphere spring.On that clear evening the band of zodiacal light seemsto engulf bright yellowish Mars and the Pleiades star cluster.

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How do you get Power into Your Lunar Base? With a Tower of Concrete Several Kilometers High

It sounds like science fiction, but building an enormous tower several kilometers high on the Lunar surface may be the best way to harness solar energy for long-term Lunar exploration. Such towers would raise solar panels above obstructing geological features on the Lunar surface, and expand the surface area available for power generation.

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NGC 1499 The California Nebula

Could Queen Calafia’s mythical island exist in space?Perhaps not, but by chance the outline of this molecular space cloud echoes the outline of the state of California, USA.Our Sun has its home within the Milky Way’sOrionArm, only about 1,000 light-years from the California Nebula.Also known as NGC 1499, the classic emission nebula is around 100 light-years long.

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Astronomers Track a Neutrino Back to the Source. Where a Black Hole Tore Apart a Star

Neutrinos are notoriously finicky particles. Hundreds of trillions pass through a person’s body every second, yet they hardly seem to interact with anything (though they actually do a lot). Even more hard to find are the “high energy” neutrinos that are believed to be formed as the outcome of some of the most violent events in the universe.

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VY Canis Majoris is “Like Betelgeuse on Steroids”

The disappearance of a star can take many forms. It could go supernova. It could turn into a black hole. Or it could just fade away quietly. Sometimes, the last of these is actually the most interesting to observe. That is the case for one of the largest stars ever found – VY Canis Majoris, a red supergiant approximately 3840 light years away in the Canis Major constellation.

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Apollo Rocks Reveal the Moon’s Early History

During the Apollo Era, one of the most important operations conducted by astronauts was sample-returns, where lunar rocks were procured and brought back to Earth. The study of these rocks revealed a great deal about the composition, structure, and geological history of the Moon. This led to profound discoveries, including the presence of water on the Moon and the fact that both Earth and its only satellite formed together.

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Simulations of the Universe are Getting Better and Better at Matching Reality

How can you possibly use simulations to reconstruct the history of the entire universe using only a small sample of galaxy observations? Through big data, that’s how. Continue reading “Simulations of the Universe are Getting Better and Better at Matching Reality” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/150428/simulations-of-the-universe-are-getting-better-and-better-at-matching-reality/

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New Supercomputer Simulations Will Help pin Down Inflation

In the very earliest moments of the big bang, the universe experienced a period of rapid expansion known as inflation. That event planted the seeds that would eventually become galaxies and clusters. And now, a recent set of simulations is able to show us how that connection worked. Continue reading “New Supercomputer Simulations Will Help pin Down Inflation”

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Gliese 486b is a Hellish World With Temperatures Above 700 Kelvin

In the past two and a half decades, astronomers have confirmed the existence of thousands of exoplanets. In recent years, thanks to improvements in instrumentation and methodology, the process has slowly been shifting from the process of discovery to that of characterization. In particular, astronomers are hoping to obtain spectra from exoplanet atmospheres that would indicate their chemical composition.

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A Single Dust Devil on Mars

Mars has a great combination of dust and wind. The result of that combination is often dust devils. The HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured several dust devils in action, including this lonely whirling dust cloud traversing across a small crater on the Red Planet. Continue reading “A Single Dust Devil on Mars”

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Dust in the Chixalub Crater Makes the Compelling Case That an Asteroid Wiped out the Dinosaurs 65 Million Years ago

For decades scientists have believed that an asteroid impact event ended the era of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Now, analysis from the crater site itself seals the deal: the same elements that were deposited around the world from the impact have been found inside the crater itself. Continue reading “Dust in the Chixalub Crater Makes the Compelling Case That an Asteroid Wiped out the Dinosaurs 65 Million Years ago”

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A hypergiant star’s mysterious dimming

Remember in late 2019, when the famous red star Betelgeuse suddenly and mysteriously began dimming in brightness? Astronomers studying a similar star – VY Canis Majoris, one of the largest and brightest stars in our galaxy – commented that it’s “… behaving a lot like Betelgeuse on steroids.” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.

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Another Big Iceberg Just Broke off from Antarctica

Glaciologists have been closely monitoring ice shelves in Antarctica for signs of cracks and chasms that indicate breakups. The loss of ice around the Earth’s polar regions is one of many consequences of climate change, which is leading to rising ocean levels and various feedback mechanisms. Recently, the ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite witnessed a giant iceberg breaking off from Antarctica’s Brunt Ice Shelf on February 26th.

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Three Tails of Comet NEOWISE

What created the unusual red tail in Comet NEOWISE?Sodium. A spectacular sight back in the summer of 2020, Comet NEOWISE, at times, displayed something more than just a surprisinglystriated white dust tail and a pleasingly patchy blue ion tail.Some color sensitive images showed an unusual red tail, and analysis showed much of this third tail’s color was emitted by sodium.

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Nancy Grace Roman Telescope is Getting an Upgraded new Infrared Filter

In 2025, the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope will launch to space. Named in honor of NASA’s first chief astronomer (and the “Mother of Hubble“), the Roman telescope will be the most advanced and powerful observatory ever deployed. With a camera as sensitive as its predecessors, and next-generation surveying capabilities, Roman will have the power of “One-Hundred Hubbles.

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Pillars of the Eagle Nebula in Infrared

Newborn stars are forming in the Eagle Nebula. Gravitationally contracting in pillars of dense gas and dust, the intense radiation of these newly-formed bright stars is causing surrounding material to boil away.This image, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in near infrared light, allows the viewer to see through much of the thick dust that makes the pillars opaque in visible light.

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A New Study Says That Betelgeuse Won’t Be Exploding Any Time Soon

I have stood under Orion The Hunter on clear evenings willing its star Betelgeuse to explode. “C’mon, blow up!” In late 2019, Betelgeuse experienced an unprecedented dimming event dropping 1.6 magnitude to 1/3 its max brightness. Astronomers wondered – was this dimming precursor to supernova? How cosmically wonderful it would be to witness the moment Betelgeuse explodes.

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Perseverance Takes a Spin

After arriving at Jezero Crater on Mars,Perseverance went for a spinon March 4.This sharp imagefrom the car-sized rover’s Navcam shows tracks leftby itswheels in the martian soil.In preparation for operations on the surface of the Red Planet, itsfirst drive lasted about 33 minutes.On a short and successful test drivePerseverance movedforward 4 meters,made a 150 degree turn,backed up for 2.

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Earth’s Atmosphere Can Generate a “Space Hurricane”

There are hurricanes in space. Researchers looking through archival data found evidence of a previously unobserved phenomenon — a giant swirling mass of plasma above Earth’s northern polar region. The “space hurricane,” as the science team calls it, churned for hours, raining down electrons instead of water. Continue reading “Earth’s Atmosphere Can Generate a “Space Hurricane””

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How Would Rain be Different on an Alien World?

On Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, it rains on a regular basis. As with Earth, these rains are the result of liquid evaporating on the surface, condensing in the skies, and falling back to the surface as precipitation. On Earth, this is known as the hydrological (or water) cycle, which is an indispensable part of our climate.

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A Little Like Mars

The surfaceof this planet looks a littlelike Mars.It’s really planet Earththough.In a digitally stitched little planet projection, the360 degree mosaic was captured near San Pedro in the ChileanAtacama desert.Telescopes in domes on the horizon are takingadvantage of the region’s famously dark, clear nights.Taken in early December, a magnificentMilky Way arcs above the horizonfor almost 180 degrees around the little planet with Orionprominent in the southern sky.

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The Mars Helicopter Could Charge up the Atmosphere Around Itself as it Flies

Plasma globes are a common enough sight in retails stores across the rich world. If you’ve ever seen one and gotten a chance to touch it, you’ve seen how the plasma will arc toward your touch creating a sense that you’re able to harness electricity like Thor. That effect does not only take place on Earth – anywhere there is a charge build-up that causes a high enough electrical potential between two points to create an electrical glow or corona.

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NASA Invests in a Plan to Build Landing Pads and Other Structures on the Moon out of Regolith

Materials are a crucial yet underappreciated component of any space exploration program. Without novel materials and ways to make them, things that are commonplace today, such as a Falcon 9 rocket or the Mars rovers, would never have been possible. As humanity expands into the solar system, it will need to make more use of the materials found there – a process commonly called in-situ resource utilization (ISRU).

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China’s Super-Heavy Lift Rocket Will Carry 100 Tons to the Moon

China’s proposed next-generation rocket reached the final stage of feasibility studies this month. The planned launch vehicle, known as the Long March-9, will be capable of sending 100 tons to the Moon, and could see its first launch as early as 2030. Announced in 2018, the Long March-9 will play a key role in China’s long-term space ambitions.

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Watch ISS spacewalk March 5

On Friday, March 5, two astronauts will perform the 2nd in a pair of International Space Station spacewalks to ready the station for solar array upgrades. How to watch live. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/watch-iss-spacewalk-feb-mar-2021

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Astronomers spy a nearby, blazing hot super-Earth

Most exoplanets orbiting close to their stars don’t have atmospheres. But Gliese 486b – orbiting a red dwarf star only 24 light-years away – does. It’s close enough to see well. Astronomers will be watching it! Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/gliese-486b-hot-super-earth-with-atmosphere

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New Perspective of Jezero Crater Shows the Path Perseverance Could use to Navigate

On February 18th, 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover set down on the surface of Mars. During the next two years of its primary mission, the rover will search the Jezero crater (where it landed) for evidence of past life on Mars. This will consist of collecting soil and rock samples from the preserved delta feature that formed billions of years ago from sediments deposited by flowing water.

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Mars in Taurus

You can spot Marsin the evening sky tonight.Now home to thePerseverance rover,the Red Planetis presently wandering through the constellation Taurus, close on the sky tothe Seven Sisters or Pleiades star cluster.In factthis deep, widefield viewof the regioncaptures Mars near its closest conjunction to the Pleiades on March 3.Below center, Mars is the bright yellowish celestial beacon only about 3degrees from the pretty blue star cluster.

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A flyby this week of infamous asteroid Apophis

Near-Earth asteroid Apophis will have its closest sweep past Earth prior to its exceedingly close 2029 pass, on March 5-6, 2021. Why astronomers are watching, plus info here on how to view the asteroid online. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-99942-apophis-encounters-2029-2036-2068

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Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Could Get A Starshade Of Its Own

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is getting closer and closer to its launch date in 2025. This Hubble-class wide-field infrared telescope is going to help astronomers discover the nature of dark energy, discover planets, and perform large area surveys of the night sky. But even with its power, the telescope will be limited in its ability to examine planets.

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Stars over an Erupting Volcano

Mt. Etna has been erupting for hundreds of thousands of years. Located in Sicily, Italy, the volcano produces lava fountains over one kilometer high. Mt. Etna is not only one of the most active volcanoes on Earth, it is one of the largest, measuring over 50 kilometers at its base and rising nearly 3 kilometers high.

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What is the Milky Way?

When someone says “Milky Way,” do you think of the starry pathway across our sky, or of the great pinwheel-shaped galaxy in space? Both are correct! Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/what-is-the-milky-way-galaxy

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Ingenuity A Mini Helicopter Now on Mars

What if you could fly around Mars? NASA may have achieved that capability last month with the landing of Perseverance, a rover which included a small flight-worthy companion called Ingenuity, nicknamed Ginny.Even though Ginny is small – a toaster-sized helicopter with four long legs and two even-longer (1.2-meter) rotors, she is the first of her kind – there has never been anything like her before.

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ESA is Working on a Mission to Explore Caves on the Moon

Infrastructure is going to be one of the biggest components of any permanent human settlement on the moon. NASA Artemis missions are focused directly on building up the facilities and processes necessary to support a moon base. ESA is also contributing both material and knowledge. Most recently they made another step in their path to explore some lava tubes and caves in the subterranean lunar world.

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Perseverance Seen From Space by ESA’s ExoMars Orbiter

A little over a week ago (February 18th, 2021), NASA’s Perseverance rover landed in the Jezero crater on the surface of Mars. In what was truly a media circus, people from all over the world tuned to watch the live coverage of the rover landing. When Perseverance touched down, it wasn’t just the mission controllers at NASA who triumphantly jumped to their feet to cheer and applaud.

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This Is What Rolling Blackouts Look Like From Space

Extreme winter weather hit Texas hard this February. An air mass from the arctic extended deep into the United States from Canada, with disastrous results for the ordinarily warm state. Along with snow and unusually low temperatures, the state’s capacity for power generation was significantly reduced by weather-related equipment failures. Images hosted by NASA’s Earth Observatory show the effect of controlled, rolling blackouts across the Greater Houston Area.

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Phobos and Deimos Two Moons, From One Source?

Running the clock back on the enigmatic pair of Martian moons Phobos and Deimos gives researchers insight to their possible origin. A recent study provides crucial clues on the possible ‘origin story’ for the two tiny moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos. Modern astronomy provides us with a snapshot, a look at the present state of affairs across the solar system… but what were things like in the distant past?

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An Exotic Explanation for the Most Extreme Gravitational Wave Detected so far

In May of 2019, the gravitational wave observatories LIGO and Virgo detected the merger of two black holes. One had a mass of 85 Suns, while the other was 66 solar masses. The event was named GW190521 and was the largest merger yet observed. It produced a 142 solar mass black hole, making it the first gravitational wave observation of an intermediate mass black hole.

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The Pelican Nebula in Red and Blue

The Pelican Nebula is changing. The entire nebula, officially designated IC 5070, is divided from the larger North America Nebula by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust. The Pelican, however, is particularly interesting because it is an unusually active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds. The featured picture was processed to bring out two main colors, red and blue, with thered dominated by light emitted by interstellar hydrogen.

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What is a quasar?

A quasar is an extremely bright and distant point-like source visible to radio telescopes. The source is a so-called Active Galactic Nucleus, fueled by a supermassive black hole. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/definition-what-is-a-quasar

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Dust Particles in the Martian Atmosphere can Create Static Electricity, but not Enough to Endanger the Rovers

Lightning is one of the most powerful forces in nature. Up to 1 billion volts of electricity can flow into a strike in less than a second. Such a large energy buildup can be created by even a relatively simple cause – two particles rubbing together. A team at the University of Oregon has now studied whether those simple interactions might cause lightning on a place it hasn’t been seen before – on Mars.

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A Review of “Extraterrestrial” by Prof. Avi Loeb

On October 19th, 2017, astronomers from the Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii announced the first-ever detection of an interstellar object in our Solar System. In honor of the observatory that first spotted it, this object (designated 1I/2017 U1) was officially named ‘Oumuamua by the IAU – a Hawaiian term loosely translated as “Scout” (or, “a messenger from afar arriving first.

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The Aurora Tree

Yes, but can your tree do this? Pictured is a visual coincidence between the dark branches of a nearby tree and bright glow of a distant aurora.The beauty of the aurora – combined with how it seemed to mimic a tree right nearby – mesmerized the photographer to such a degree that he momentarily forgot to take pictures.

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Some Earth Life Could Already Survive on Mars

Mars’ surface is a harsh environment for life. But life on Earth is notoriously resilient as well. No one is quite sure yet how microbes from Earth would fare on the Martian surface. However, the impact of a potential transmigration of microbes to the red planet could be immense. Not only could it skew any findings of potential real Martian life we might find, it could also completely disrupt any nascent biosphere that Mars might have.

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Perseverance Landing Site from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Seen from orbit a day after adramatic arrivalon the martian surface, the Perseverance landing siteis identified in this high-resolution viewfrom the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.The orbiter’s camera image also reveals the locationof theMars 2020 missiondescent stage, heat shield, andparachute and back shell that delivered Perseveranceto the surface of Mars. Each annotated inset box spans 200 meters (650 feet) across the floor ofJezero Crater.

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Cosmic ray originated in cataclysmic event

Astronomers found a high energy neutrino – a cosmic ray – that apparently originated during a “tidal disruption event,” that is, when a supermasive black hole shredded a distant star. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/origin-cosmic-ray-when-black-hole-shreds-star

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Astronomers Think They’ve Found the Neutron Star Remnant Left Behind from Supernova 1987A

It was the brightest supernova in nearly 400 years when it lit the skies of the southern hemisphere in February 1987. Supernova 1987A – the explosion of a blue supergiant star in the nearby mini-galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud – amazed the astronomical community. It offered them an unprecedented opportunity to observe an exploding star in real-time with modern instruments and telescopes.

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Did Ancient Martian Life Eat Rocks For Food?

Some lucky astronomers get to work with some of the rarest material in the world. Real Martian meteorites are extraordinarily rare, but are invaluable in terms of understanding Martian geology. Now, one of the most famous meteorites, nicknamed “Black Beauty”, is helping shed light on a much more speculative area of science: Martian biology.

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The Core Of The Milky Way Is An Extreme Place

Astronomers always like to look at incredibly violent places. Violence, in the astronomical sense, makes for rare conditions that can explain much about our universe. One of the violent places that astronomers love to study is the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Now, astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics (CfA) at Harvard have come up with a new catalogue of some of the most intense areas near the galactic core.

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Mars Perseverance Sol 3

Stitched together on planet Earth,142 separate images make upthis 360 degree panorama from the floor of Jezero Crater on Mars.The high-resolution color images were taken by thePerseverance rover’szoomableMastcam-Z duringmission sol 3, also known as February 21, 2021.In the foreground of Mastcam-Z’s view is the car-sized rover’s deck.Broad light-colored patches in the martian soil just beyond it were scoured bydescent stage rocket engines during therover’s dramatic arrivalon February 18.

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Watch ISS spacewalk February 28

On Sunday, February 28, 3 astronauts will perform the first in a pair of International Space Station spacewalks to ready the station for solar array upgrades. How to watch live. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/watch-iss-spacewalk-feb-mar-2021

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Why does this galaxy look older than its years?

To the extent that we can see them, galaxies in the very early universe should look relatively young and unformed. But galaxy ALESS 073.1 is a surprise to astronomers: it looks more mature than we’d have any reason to expect. Why? Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/galaxy-looks-older-than-its-years-aless-073-1

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A Venus Flyby

On a missionto explore the inner heliosphere and solar corona,on July 11, 2020the Wide-field Imager on board NASA’sParker Solar Probecapturedthis stunning viewof the nightside of Venus at distance ofabout 12,400 kilometers (7,693 miles).The spacecraft was making the third of seven gravity-assistflybys of the inner planet.The gravity-asssist flybys are designed touse the approachto Venus to help the probe alter its orbit toultimately come within 6 million kilometers (4 million miles)of the solar surface in late 2025.

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Cygnus X-1 was the First Black Hole Ever Found. New Measurements Show it's Much More Massive Than Previously Believed

In 1964 two Aerobee suborbital rockets were launched with the goal of mapping x-ray sources in the sky. Each rocket contained a directed Geiger counter, so that as the rocket rotated at the peak of its trajectory to measure the direction of x-ray sources. The project discovered eight x-ray sources, including a particularly bright one in the constellation Cygnus.

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The Space Court Foundation Presents “Women of Color in Space”

In the coming generations, humanity’s presence in space is expected to grow considerably. With everything from space tourism, the commercialization of Low Earth Orbit (LEO), asteroid mining, and maybe even settlements on the Moon and Mars in mind, there appears to be no limit to what we hope to accomplish. Another interesting thing about the modern space age is the way it is becoming more open and accessible, with more people and nations able to take part.

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Our Part of the Galaxy is Packed with Binary Stars

Binary star systems are everywhere. They make up a huge percentage of all known solar systems: from what we can tell, about half of all Sun-like stars have a binary partner. But we haven’t really had a chance to study them in detail yet. That’s about to change. Using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft, a research team has just compiled a gigantic new catalog of nearby binary star systems, and it shows that at least 1.

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Spiral Galaxy M66 from Hubble

It’s always nice to get a new view of an old friend. This stunning Hubble Space Telescope image of nearby spiral galaxy M66 is just that. A spiral galaxy with a small central bar, M66 is a member of the Leo Galaxy Triplet, a group of three galaxies about 30 million light years from us.

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How Long Will Space Junk Take to Burn Up? Here’s a Handy Chart

If the Roman Empire had been able to launch a satellite in a relatively high Low Earth Orbit – say about 1,200 km (750 miles) in altitude – only now would that satellite be close to falling back to Earth. And if the dinosaurs had launched a satellite into the furthest geostationary orbit – 36,000 km (23,000 miles) or higher — it might still be up there today.

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Watch Perseverance Land on Mars. Mind…Blown

NASA’s Perseverance rover is practically bristling with cameras. And those cameras were busy during the rover’s breathtaking descent to the Martian surface. Now NASA has released images and videos of the blessed event. Continue reading “Watch Perseverance Land on Mars. Mind…Blown” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/150234/watch-perseverance-land-on-mars-mind-blown/

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A map of 25,000 Supermassive Black Holes Across the Universe

The Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) is a different kind of radio telescope. Although radio light has the longest wavelengths and lowest frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, much of radio astronomy has focused on the higher frequency end. Observatories such as ALMA study radio light at frequencies of hundreds of Gigahertz, and the VLA studies the fifty Gigahertz range, LOFAR captures radio signals below 250 Megahertz, which is in the range of the lowest radio frequencies that can be seen from Earth.

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Perseverance’s Landing … Seen From Orbit!

The HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has done it again. The imaging team was able to capture the Perseverance rover as it descended through the Martian atmosphere, hanging under its parachute. Stunning. Continue reading “Perseverance’s Landing … Seen From Orbit!” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/150245/perseverances-landing-seen-from-orbit/

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Protogalaxy Cluster Found When the Cosmic Fog Was Starting to Clear, When the Universe Was Just 750 Million Years Old

Origin stories are a focus of many astronomical studies. Planetary formation, solar system formation, and even galaxy formation have long been studied in order to understand how the universe came to be where it is today. Now, a team of scientists from the Lyman Alpha Galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization (LAGER) consortium have found an extremely early “protogalaxy” that was formed approximately 750 million years after the big bang.

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The Mars Helicopter is Online and Getting Ready to Fly

Earth is the only planet in the solar system with aircraft capable of sustained flight. Suppose the ground-breaking Ingenuity helicopter, currently stowed aboard the similarly spectacular Mars Perseverance rover, accomplishes its planned mission. In that case, Mars will become the second planet to have a powered aircraft fly through its atmosphere.

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There’s Evidence That Mars Once Had an Atmosphere With Less Oxygen. A Possible Biosignature For Life?

Remote sensing is only useful if scientists have an idea of what they are looking at. That knowledge is especially important for remote sensing applications on other planets, such as Mars, where it is extraordinarily difficult to collect information about an observed object in any other way. To make up for the lack of ability to perform other tests in situ, scientists set up laboratory experiments with different environments and materials and compare the remote sensing data with the observed remote objects.

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'Ghostly' neutrino from star-shredding black hole reveals cosmic particle accelerator of epic proportions

A ghostly particle that smashed into Antarctica in 2019 has been traced back to a black hole tearing apart a star while acting like a giant cosmic particle accelerator, a new study finds. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/neutrino-from-star-shredding-black-hole-particle-accelerator

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Just Some of the Planets That TESS Has Found Nearby

Ever since NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope was launched in 2009, there has an explosion in the study of the extrasolar planets. With the retirement of Kepler in 2018, it has fallen to missions like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to pick up where its predecessor left off. Using observations from TESS, an international team of astronomers recently discovered three exoplanets orbiting a young Sun-like star named TOI 451.

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Moon Rising Between Starships

What’s that on either side of the Moon?Starships.Specifically, they are launch-and-return reusable rockets being developed by SpaceX to lift cargo and eventually humans from the Earth’s surface into space. The two rockets pictured are SN9 (Serial Number 9) and SN10 which were captured near their Boca Chica, Texas launchpad last month posing below January’s full Wolf Moon.

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Swarm of black holes discovered

For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of a throng of black holes crowding near the center of an ancient globular cluster. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/group-black-holes-found-globular-cluster-ngc-6397

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Can air pollution help us find alien life?

To find alien life in our universe, scientists have considered searches for optical lasers or even giant energy-harvesting structures, known as Dyson spheres. Now they’re suggesting a more mundane sort of search, a hunt for air pollution in exoplanet atmospheres. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/can-pollution-help-us-find-alien-life

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Perseverance has Landed. Here are its First Pictures From the Surface of Mars

They’ve done it again. After a journey of nearly seven months, the Perseverance rover teams successfully guided their intrepid traveler to a pinpoint landing inside Jezero Crater on Mars on February 18, 2021. And within minutes of the landing, Perseverance sent back two images from the front and rear Hazard Avoidance Cameras, revealing its surroundings on the Red Planet.

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A new Approach Could Tease out the Connection Between Gravity and Quantum Mechanics

In physics, there are two main ways to model the universe. The first is the classical way. Classical models such as Newton’s laws of motion and Einstein’s theory of relativity assume that the properties of an object such as its position and motion are absolute. There are practical limits to how accurately we can measure an object’s path through space and time, but that’s on us.

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Did a Comet Wipe out the Dinosaurs?

About 66 million years ago a massive chunk of rock slammed into Earth in what is the modern-day Yucatan Peninsula. The impact extinguished about 75% of all life on Earth. Most famously, it was the event that wiped out the dinosaurs. While mainstream scientific thought has pointed to an asteroid as the impactor, a new research letter says it could’ve, in fact, been a comet.

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Mars Perseverance Sol 0

After a 203 day interplanetary voyage, andseven minutes of terror,Perseverance has landed on Mars. Confirmation of the successful landing at Jezero craterwas announced from missioncontrol at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at12:55 pm PST on February 18.The car-sized Mars rover’s Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera acquired thisinitial low resolution image shortly after touchdown on missionSol 0.

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Magnetic Fields Help Shape the Formation of New Planets

In all of scientific modeling, the models attempting to replicate planetary and solar system formation are some of the most complicated. They are also notoriously difficult to develop. Normally they center around one of two formative ideas: planets are shaped primarily by gravity or planets are shaped primarily by magnetism. Now a new theoretical model has been developed by a team at the University of Zurich (UZH) that uses math from both methodologies to inform the most complete model yet of planetary formation.

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We Could Find Extraterrestrial Civilizations by Their Air Pollution

Upcoming telescopes will give us more power to search for biosignatures on all the exoplanets we’ve found. Much of the biosignature conversation is centred on biogenic chemistry, such as atmospheric gases produced by simple, single-celled creatures. But what if we want to search for technological civilizations that might be out there?

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Swiss Alps, Martian Sky

Taken on February 6,this snowy mountain and skyscape was capturednear Melchsee-Frutt, central Switzerland, planet Earth.The reddish daylight and blue tinted glow around the afternoon Sun arecolors of the Martian sky, though.Of course both worlds have the same Sun.From Mars, the Sun looks only about half as bright and 2/3 the sizecompared to its appearance from Earth.

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NASA’s InSight Will Have Reduced Capability Until a Dust Devil Cleans off its Solar Panels

All eyes are on Mars this week, and, if we’re being honest, NASA’s InSight lander isn’t the star of the show right now. At the time of writing, we’re anxiously waiting to find out whether or not the Perseverance rover survives its fiery arrival at Mars. But Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) is just the first hazard that awaits robotic missions to the red planet.

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NASA’s Perseverance Rover The Most Ambitious Space Mission Ever?

When it comes to Mars exploration, NASA has more success than any other agency. This week, they’ll attempt to land another sophisticated rover on the Martian surface to continue the search for evidence of ancient life. The Mars Perseverance rover will land on Mars on Thursday, February 18th, and it’s bringing some very ambitious technologies with it.

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Juno Just Saw a Spacerock Crash Into Jupiter

Timing is extraordinarily important in many aspects of astronomy. If an astronomer or their instrument is looking the wrong way at the wrong time they could miss something spectacular. Alternatively, there are moments when our instruments capture something unexpected in regions of space that we were searching for something else. That is exactly what happened recently when a team of scientists, led by Rohini Giles at the Southwest Research Institute, saw an image of what is likely a meteor impacting Jupiter’s atmosphere.

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Sun Pillar with Upper Tangent Arc

This was not a typical sun pillar. Just after sunrise two weeks ago in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, a photographer, looking out his window, was suddenly awestruck.The astonishment was caused by a sun pillar that fanned out at the top. Sun pillars, singular columns of light going up from the Sun, are themselves rare to see, and are known to be caused by sunlight reflecting from wobbling, hexagon-shaped ice-disks falling through Earth’s atmosphere.

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What’s the weather like on Titan?

Most of the planets in our solar system have some sort of atmosphere and many have dynamic weather systems. But only one moon in the solar system, Saturn’s large moon Titan, can say the same. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/titan-saturns-moon-weather-seasons-methane-rain-storms

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The Surprising Discovery of Ceramic Chips Inside Meteorites Means There Were Wild Temperature Variations In the Early Solar System

Meteorites are excellent windows into early solar system formation. Many were formed in the those early days, and unlike rocks on the Earth, most are not affected by billions of years of tectonic activity that wipes away any of their original structure. Recently a team led by Nicolas Dauphas and Justin Hu at the University of Chicago (UC) found that the formation process for many of these meteorites was much more violent than previously thought.

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This is What Happens to Spacecraft When They Re-Enter the Earth’s Atmosphere

When one of the Russian Progress resupply ships undocks from the International Space Station, timing is everything. The Progress needs to fire its engines at just the right time to instigate the deorbit burn in order for the ship to enter the atmosphere at just the right place, so that its destructive re-entry occurs over the Pacific Ocean.

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Water Shaped Features on Mars Much Earlier Than Previously Believed

In two days (on Thursday, Feb. 18th, 2021), NASA’s Perseverance rover will land on Mars. As the latest robotic mission in the Mars Exploration Program (MEP), Perseverance will follow in the footsteps of its sister mission, Curiosity. Just in time for its arrival, research conducted at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has shown that Mars’ surface was shaped by flowing water several million years earlier than previously thought.

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What is the Milky Way?

When someone says “Milky Way,” do you think of the starry pathway across our sky, or of the great pinwheel-shaped galaxy in space? Both are correct! Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/what-is-the-milky-way-galaxy

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Galaxies have magnetic fields, too! Images here

Until recently, magnetic fields in the outskirts of galaxies were too faint to be detected. Although it’s still not clear what causes them or how they’re maintained, astronomers have started to create images of their observations of galaxies’ magnetic fields producing beautiful aurora-like effects. See them here. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/images-of-magnetic-fields-in-galaxies

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Bringing Mars rocks to Earth With NASA's Perseverance Rover landing soon, a lead scientist explains its tech and goals

What we’re looking for is evidence of past life, either direct chemical or organic signs in the composition and the chemistry of rocks, or textural evidence in the rock record. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/bringing-mars-rocks-back-to-earth-perseverance-rover

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A new planet next door?

Astronomers have spotted “something” near Alpha Centauri A, in the star system nearest our Earth and sun. If it turns out to be a planet, it’ll be the first time a planet has been directly imaged within the habitable zone of a star. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/alpha-centauri-a-planet-candidate-direct-image-discovery

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We heart the Earth and sky

This Valentine’s Day, we find so much to love in the many heart-shaped objects created by Mother Nature that can be found right here on Earth or all the way to the deepest reaches of the sky. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/heart-shaped-objects-in-nature-space-earth-valentines-day

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How Old is the Ice at Mars’ North Pole?

On Earth, the study of ice core samples is one of many methods scientists use to reconstruct the history of our past climate change. The same is true of Mars’ northern polar ice cap, which is made up of many layers of frozen water that have accumulated over eons. The study of these layers could provide scientists with a better understanding of how the Martian climate changed over time.

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Long Stem Rosette Nebula

Would theRosette Nebula by any othername look as sweet?The bland New General Catalogdesignation of NGC 2237 doesn’t appear to diminish the appearance of this flowery emission nebula, at the top of the image, atop a long stem of glowing hydrogen gas.Inside the nebula lies anopen clusterof bright young stars designatedNGC 2244.

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Stereo Eros

Get out yourred/blue glassesand float next toasteroid 433 Eros.Orbiting the Sun once every 1.8 years, the near-Earth asteroidis named for the Greek god of love.Still, its shape more closely resembles a lumpy potato than a heart.Eros is a diminutive 40 x 14 x 14 kilometer world of undulating horizons,craters, boulders and valleys.

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Quantum Theory Proposes That Cause and Effect Can Go In Loops

Causality is one of those difficult scientific topics that can easily stray into the realm of philosophy. Science’s relationship with the concept started out simply enough: an event causes another event later in time. That had been the standard understanding of the scientific community up until quantum mechanics was introduced. Then, with the introduction of the famous “spooky action at a distance” that is a side effect of the concept of quantum entanglement, scientists began to question that simple interpretation of causality.

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The Crab Nebula Seen in 3-Dimensions

The Crab Nebula is arguably one of the most famous objects in the night sky. It was delineated as M1 in Messier’s famous catalogue. It is the remnants of a supernova that was actually visible in day time almost 1000 years ago. And its remnants have been astonishing both professional and amateur astronomers ever since.

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ESA’s Solar Orbiter ‘Hides’ Behind the Sun

A deep-space mission is about to pull a ‘vanishing act,’ through mid-February, as the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter (affectionately known as ‘SolO’ to mission controllers) makes a crucial pass behind the Sun. Continue reading “ESA’s Solar Orbiter ‘Hides’ Behind the Sun” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/150097/esas-solar-orbiter-hides-behind-the-sun/

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Spiral Galaxy NGC 1350

This gorgeous island universe lies about 85 million light-yearsdistant in the southernconstellationFornax.Inhabited by young blue star clusters, thetightly woundspiral arms of NGC 1350seem to join in a circle around the galaxy’s large,bright nucleus, giving it the appearance of acosmic eye.In fact, NGC 1350 is about 130,000 light-years across.That makes it as large or slightly larger than the Milky Way.

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Three Storms Have Dumped Snow on Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea

The words “snow” and “Hawai’i” are not often mentioned in the same paragraph – or even on the same vacation. But snow does fall in Hawai’i almost every year, and 2021 has seen a deep cold front drop snow on the summits of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on the Big Island at least three times in the past few weeks – as well as on Haleakala on Maui.

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Possible Super-Earth in the Habitable Zone at Alpha Centauri

Astronomers using a new technique may have not only found a super-Earth at a neighbouring star, but they may also have directly imaged it. And it could be nice and cozy in the habitable zone around Alpha Centauri. Continue reading “Possible Super-Earth in the Habitable Zone at Alpha Centauri” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Mars atmosphere shedding charged particles onto Phobos?

New research suggests that particles escaping from Mars’ atmosphere have been accumulating on the surface of the planet’s largest moon Phobos for billions of years. They could provide important new details about the history of both worlds. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-atmosphere-history-phobos-soil

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Super-Earth Conditions Simulated in the Lab to Discover if They’re Habitable

Deep inside planet Earth, there is a liquid outer core and a solid inner core that counter-rotate with each other. This creates the dynamo effect that is responsible for generating Earth’s planetary magnetic field. Also known as a magnetosphere, this field keeps our climate stable by preventing Earth’s atmosphere from being lost to space.

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Cygnus Mosaic 2010 2020

In brush strokesof interstellar dust and glowing gas,this beautiful skyscape is painted across the plane of ourMilky Way Galaxynear the northern end of the Great Rift andthe constellation Cygnus the Swan.Composed over a decadewith 400 hours of image data, the broad mosaic spans an impressive28x18 degrees across the sky.Alpha star of Cygnus, bright, hot, supergiantDeneblies at the left.

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Here’s the Best Place for Explorers to Harvest Martian Ice

Water ice, especially any located in the sub-surface, has long been a focal point of Mars exploration efforts. Reasons abound as to why – from the need to grow plants to the need to create more rocket fuel to blast off the planet for a round trip. Most of that effort has focused on the poles of the planet, where most of the water ice has been found.

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February 7th Was the Start of a New Year on Mars

Happy New Year – from Mars. It’s always mind expanding to think about the passage of time from other perspectives than the ones we are most familiar with. So let’s celebrate that our slightly colder red cousin completed another spin around the sun. The 36th Martian year began on February 7th, with a noticeable lack of fireworks or people singing Auld Lang Syne.

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InSight is Going to Try and “Hear” Perseverance Land on Mars From 3,452 km Away

Now that the UAE’s Hope spacecraft and China’sTianwen-1 have successfully reached the Red Planet, next up is NASA’s Perseverance rover, set to land on February 18th. Ten operational spacecraft are currently in orbit or on the surface of Mars, ready to welcome the new rover. But one spacecraft in particular, the InSight lander, will be listening closely for Perseverance’s dramatic entry, descent and landing – a.

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Plasma Thruster Could Dramatically Cut Down Flight Times to the Outer Solar System

I just finished the most recent season of The Expanse – my current favourite Sci-Fi series. Unlike most of my other go-to Sci-Fi, The Expanse’s narrative is (thus far) mainly contained to our own Solar System. In Star Trek, ships fly about the galaxy at Faster-Than-Light speeds giving mention to the many light years (or parsecs cough Star Wars) travelled to say nothing of sublight journeys within solar systems themselves.

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A New Technique to Find Cold Gas Streams That Might Make up the Missing (Normal) Matter in the Universe

Where is all the missing matter? That question has plagued astronomers for decades, because the Universe looks emptier than it should, given current theories about its makeup. Most of the Universe (70%) appears to be composed of Dark Energy, the mysterious force which is causing the Universe’s rate of expansion to increase.

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Firing Lasers to Tame the Sky

Why do stars twinkle?Our atmosphere is to blame as pockets of slightly off-temperature air, in constant motion, distort the light paths from distant astronomical objects.Atmospheric turbulence is a problem for astronomers because it blurs the images of the sources they want to study.The telescope featured in this image, located at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, is equipped with four lasers to combat this turbulence.

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If Dark Matter is Made of Sterile Neutrinos, a new Survey has Narrowed Down What to Look for

We don’t know what dark matter is. We do know what it isn’t, and that’s a problem. Matter is made of elementary particles, from the quarks and electrons that make up atoms and molecules, to primordial neutrinos spread throughout the cosmos. But none of the known elementary particles can comprise dark matter, so what is it?

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Emirates Mars Mission Arrives at the Red Planet Today!

On July 19th, 2020, the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) – aka. Al Amal (“Hope” in Arabic) – launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan on its way to Mars. This mission, the first interplanetary effort to be mounted by an Arab nation, is being carried out by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in collaboration with a number of research institutions internationally.

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A New Supernova Remnant Found from an Exploding White Dwarf Star

Astronomers have spotted the remnant of a rare type of supernova explosion. It’s called a Type Iax supernova, and it’s the result of an exploding white dwarf. These are relatively rare supernovae, and astronomers think they’re responsible for creating many heavy elements. They’ve found them in other galaxies before, but this is the first time they’ve spotted one in the Milky Way.

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Anniversary of mysterious parade of meteors

On February 9, 1913, lucky observers witnessed the Great Meteor Procession, when bright meteors soared horizontally across the sky in a stately marching rank for minutes at a time. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/this-date-in-science-great-meteor-procession-of-february-9-1913

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The 1st sign of intelligent life beyond Earth?

Physicist Avi Loeb of Harvard believes we should take seriously the idea that ‘Oumuamua – the 1st known object to pass through our solar system from interstellar space – might have been created by an alien civilization. His new book is called “Extraterrestrial.” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/book-avi-loeb-extraterrestrial-1st-sign-of-intelligent-life

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UAE’s Hope mission is now orbiting Mars

The United Arab Emirates mission to Mars – called “Hope” – successfully entered Mars orbit today. It’ll be followed tomorrow by China’s Tianwen-1 mission and, on February 18, by NASA’s Perseverance mission. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/missions-to-mars-uae-hope-china-tianwen-1

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What Are Extrasolar Planets?

For countless generations, human beings have looked out at the night sky and wondered if they were alone in the Universe. With the discovery of other planets in our Solar System, the true extent of the Milky Way galaxy, and other galaxies beyond our own, this question has only deepened and become more profound.

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Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids Offer Surprises Even Before NASA’s Lucy Mission has a Chance to Visit Them.

A new study out this month suggests that Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids may be more peculiar than previously thought. The Trojan asteroids are rocky objects which orbit the Sun just ahead of and just behind the gas giant, in gravitational sweet spots known as Lagrange points. The swarm ahead of Jupiter, known as the L4 (Greek) group, is slightly larger than the L5 (Trojan) swarm behind, but until now, astronomers believed that there was otherwise little differentiation between the two swarms.

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Astronomers update the impact risk from Asteroid Apophis

Astronomers in Hawaii have updated measurements of the Yarkovsky effect – a minuscule push imparted by sunlight – for asteroid Apophis. The effect is particularly important for Apophis, because it relates to the possibility of an Earth impact in 2068. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-99942-apophis-encounters-2029-2036-2068

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WR32 and Interstellar Clouds in Carina

Stars can be like artists.With interstellar gas as a canvas, a massive and tumultuous Wolf-Rayet star has created the picturesque ruffled half-circular filaments called WR32, on the image left.Additionally, the winds and radiation from a small cluster of stars, NGC 3324, have sculpted a 35 light year cavity on the upper right, with its right side appearing as a recognizable face in profile.

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NASA’s moon program – Artemis – boosted at White House press briefing

During a White House press briefing on February 4, 2021, White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the Biden administration’s support fo NASA’s Artemis program, whose long-term goal is to send the next man and first woman to the moon by 2024. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/what-is-nasas-artemis-program-moon

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Today is New Year’s Day on Mars

Mars Year 36 begins on February 7, 2021. If you’re looking for a reason to celebrate, here’s to a Happy New Year … on Mars. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/mars-calendar-years-began-in-earth-year-1955

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Electrons Can Get Accelerated to Nearly the Speed of Light As They Interact With the Earth’s Magnetosphere

Electrons serve many purposes in physics. They are used by some particle accelerators and they underpin our modern world in the silicon chips that run the world’s computers. They’re also prevalent in space, where they can occasionally be seen floating around in a plasma in the magnetospheres of planets. Now, a team from the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) lead by Drs Hayley Allison and Yuri Shprits have discovered that those electrons present in the magnetosphere can be accelerated up to relativistic speeds, and that could potentially be hazardous to our increasing orbital infrastructure.

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What’s Causing Those Landslides on Mars? Maybe Underground Salt and Melting Ice

Changes in Mar’s geography always attract significant scientific and even public attention. A hope for signs of liquid water (and therefore life) is likely one of the primary driving forces behind this interest. One particularly striking changing feature is the Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL) originally found by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

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A Northern Winter Night

Snow blanketsthe ground in this serene forest and sky view.Assembled in a 360 degree panoramic projection, the mosaicked frames werecaptured at January’s end along a quiet country road nearSiemiony, northeastern Poland,planet Earth.The night was cold and between trees reaching toward the skyshine the stars and nebulae of the northern winterMilky Way.

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A New Radar Instrument Will Try To Fill the Void Left By Arecibo

Observational astronomy is dependent on its data, and therefore also dependent on the instruments that collect that data. So when one of those instruments fails it is a blow to the profession as a whole. The collapse of the Arecibo Telescope last year after it was damaged by Hurricane Maria in 2017 permanently deprived the radio astronomy world of one of its primary observational tools.

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Astronomers Can Predict When a Galaxy’s Star Formation Ends Based on the Shape and Size of its Disk

A galaxy’s main business is star formation. And when they’re young, like youth everywhere, they keep themselves busy with it. But galaxies age, evolve, and experience a slow-down in their rate of star formation. Eventually, galaxies cease forming new stars altogether, and astronomers call that quenching. They’ve been studying quenching for decades, yet much about it remains a mystery.

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Maarten Schmidt solves the puzzle of quasars

On February 5, 1963, Maarten Schmidt unraveled the mystery of quasars and pushed back the edges of the known cosmos. His insight into quasars – the most distant and luminous objects known – has changed the way scientists view the universe. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/this-date-in-science-maartin-schmidt-discovers-first-known-quasar

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What’s the difference between asteroids and comets?

Asteroids and comets are generally composed of different stuff. They both orbit our sun, but, for the most part, reside in different parts of our solar system. Yet some rare objects display characteristics of both asteroids and comets. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/whats-the-difference-between-comets-and-asteroids

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Astronomers are now Finding Planetary Disks Around the Smallest, Least Massive Stars

Astronomers have been watching planetary systems form around sun-like stars for decades. And now, new observations with the ALMA telescope reveal the same process playing out around the smallest, but most common, stars in galaxy. Continue reading “Astronomers are now Finding Planetary Disks Around the Smallest, Least Massive Stars” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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SLS Will be Tested Again in About 3 Weeks

In November of 2021, NASA will embark on a new era of space exploration as they make the inaugural launch of the Space Launch System (SLS). When it enters service, this booster will be the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V, which took the Apollo astronauts to the Moon. This is fitting since the SLS will be the rocket returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024 (as part of Project Artemis).

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Dark Energy Survey Finds Hundreds of New Gravitational Lenses

It’s relatively rare for a magical object from fantasy stories to have a analog in real life. A truly functional crystal ball (or palantir) would be useful for everything from military operations to checking up on grandma. While nothing exists to be able to observe the mundanities of everyday life, there is something equivalent for extraordinarily far away galaxies: gravitational lenses.

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What Looked Like Phosphine On Venus Might Actually Just Be Sulfur Dioxide

There’s nothing like a good old fashioned science fight. When the discovery being challenged is one of the most public and intriguing of the last year, it’s bound to be even more interesting. A team of scientists, led by Andrew Lincowski and Victoria Meadows at the University of Washington (UW), and involving members from a variety of NASA labs and other universities, has challenged the discovery of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus that was first announced last year.

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Apollo 14 Heads for Home

Fifty years agothis Sunday (February 7, 1971), the crewof Apollo 14left lunar orbit andheaded for home.They watchedthisEarthrise from their command module Kittyhawk.With Earth’s sunlit crescent just peeking over the lunar horizon,the cratered terrain in the foreground is along the lunar farside.Of course, while orbiting the Moon, the crew could watch Earth rise andset, but from the lunar surface the Earth hung stationary in the sky overtheir landing site atFra Mauro Base.

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Is There An Apollo 14 Moon Tree Near You?

50 years ago this week, the Apollo 14 crew flew their mission to the Moon. Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell were the third pair of astronauts to walk on the lunar surface. They conducted two moonwalks in the Frau Mauro highlands, collecting rocks and setting up science experiments, as well as broadcasting the first color TV images from the Moon.

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BluShift Aerospace Launches Stardust 1.0 Rocket

Maine-based BluShift Aerospace launches of a unique rocket from a Cold War Air Force base. A small company took a major step towards the reality of a ‘Spaceport Maine’ this past weekend. After several attempts, the Maine-based company BluShift Aerospace successfully launched its first rocket from Loring Commerce Center in Northern Maine this past weekend, with the liftoff of Stardust 1.

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It Looks Like Iceberg A-68A is Coming Apart

Iceberg A-68A, the massive frigid behemoth posing a threat to South Georgia Island, might be breaking into pieces. Satellite images from the European Space Agency showed large cracks forming in the iceberg. Now it appears to breaking apart. Continue reading “It Looks Like Iceberg A-68A is Coming Apart” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Every Challenge Astronauts Will Face on a Flight to Mars

In 1972, the Space Race officially ended as NASA sent one last crew of astronauts to the surface of the Moon (Apollo 17). This was the brass ring that both the US and the Soviets were reaching for, the “Moonshot” that would determine who had supremacy in space. In the current age of renewed space exploration, the next great leap will clearly involve sending astronauts to Mars.

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The Earth’s Magnetosphere Might be Creating Water on the Moon

There’s no doubt that the Moon has water on its surface. Orbiters have spotted deposits of ice persisting in the perpetual shadows of polar craters. And recent research shows that water exists in sunlit parts of the Moon, too. Over the years, scientists have presented evidence that the Moon’s water came from comets, from asteroids, from inside the Moon, and even from the Sun.

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Apollo 14: A View from Antares

Fifty years agothis Friday, Apollo 14’s Lunar Module Antares landed on the Moon.Toward the end of the stay astronaut Ed Mitchell snappeda seriesof photos of the lunar surface while looking out a window,assembledinto this detailed mosaic byApollo LunarSurface Journal editor Eric Jones.The view looks across theFra Mauro highlands to the northwestof the landing site after the Apollo 14 astronauts had completedtheir second and finalwalk on the Moon.

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A new Class of Exoplanets can Shrink, From Subneptunes Into Superearths

Mighty planets can be whittled down, leaving behind only their rocky cores, becoming nothing bigger than superearths. While astronomers had long suspected that this could happen, a new study reveals that it can occur in as little as a billion years. Continue reading “A new Class of Exoplanets can Shrink, From Subneptunes Into Superearths”

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Black Holes Simulated in a Tank of Water Reveals “Backreaction” for the First Time

It’s hard to make a black hole in the lab. You have to gather up a bunch of mass, squeeze it until it gravitationally collapses on itself, work, work, work. It’s so hard to do that we’ve never done it. We can, however, make a simulated black hole using a tank of water, and it can tell us interesting things about how black holes work.

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By Measuring Light From Individual Stars Between Galaxy Clusters, Astronomers Find Clues About Dark Matter

Astronomers have been able to measure an extremely faint glow of light within galaxy clusters, and that measurement came with a surprise: it traced the amount of invisible dark matter, something that scientists have been trying to pin down for decades. Continue reading “By Measuring Light From Individual Stars Between Galaxy Clusters, Astronomers Find Clues About Dark Matter”

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SN9 Tests Ends With a Boom. You’re Up SN10

Another day, another round of testing (and yes, another explosion). Today, on Tuesday, Feb. 2nd, 2021, flight teams at SpaceX’s launch facility near Boca Chica, Texas, conducted a high-altitude test flight with a Starship prototype. Similar to the previous test in December, the SN9 was powered by three Raptor engines, flew to an altitude of 10 km (6.

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What Could We Learn From a Mission to Phobos?

According to new research that appeared in the scientific journal Nature, the larger of Mars’ two moons (Phobos) has an orbit that takes it through a stream of charged particles (ions) that flow from the Red Planet’s atmosphere. This process has been taking place for billions of years as the planet slowly lost its atmosphere, effectively establishing a record of Martian climate change on Phobos’ surface.

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Physicists Figure out how to Make Gravitational Wave Detectors “Hear” 6x More Universe

Gravitational wave detectors are limited by fundamental quantum noise – an incessant “hum” that they cannot ever remove. But now physicists have recently improved a technique, called “squeezing”, that can allow the next generation of detectors to double their sensitivity. Continue reading “Physicists Figure out how to Make Gravitational Wave Detectors “Hear” 6x More Universe”

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Astronomers are Starting to Understand the Quasar Lifecycle

Supermassive black holes have a complicated lifecycle. Sometimes they’re “on”, blasting out tremendous amounts of energy, and sometimes they’re “off’, where they sleep like dragons in their caves. By comparing the proportion of high-energy to low-energy waves emitted by quasars, astronomers are beginning to pin down how many black holes are sleeping, and when they’re likely to wake back up.

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MESSENGER Saw a Meteoroid Strike Mercury

Telescopes have captured meteoroids hitting the Moon and several spacecraft imaged Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 smacking into Jupiter in 1994. But impacts as they happen on another rocky world have never been observed. However, the MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) mission may have seen an impact take place back in 2013.

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When Galaxies Collide, Black Holes Don’t Always Get the Feast They Were Hoping for

What happens when galaxies collide? Well, if any humans are around in about a billion years, they might find out. That’s when our Milky Way galaxy is scheduled to collide with our neighbour the Andromeda galaxy. That event will be an epic, titanic, collision. The supermassive black holes at the center of both galaxies will feast on new material and flare brightly as the collision brings more gas and dust within reach of their overwhelming gravitational pull.

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China's Tianwen-1 Mars mission in photos

China’s first Mars exploration mission, Tianwen-1, will arrive in orbit at the Red Planet on Feb. 10, and the rover is scheduled to land in May. See photos of the Tianwen-1 mission here! Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/china-tianwen-1-mars-mission-photos

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A Sunlike Star Found With Four (No, Five!) Exoplanets Orbiting It

In just nine months (October 31st, 2021), NASA’s long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will finally be launched to space. Once operational, this next-generation observatory will use its powerful infrared imaging capabilities to study all kinds of cosmological phenomena. It will also be essential to the characterization of extrasolar planets and their atmospheres to see if any are habitable.

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Galaxy Mergers can Boost Star Formation, and it can Also Shut it Down

Galaxy mergers are beautiful sights, but ultimately deadly. In the midst of the collision, the combined galaxy will shine brighter than it ever has before. But that glory comes with a price: all those new stars use up all the available fuel, and star formation grinds to a halt. Continue reading “Galaxy Mergers can Boost Star Formation, and it can Also Shut it Down”

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A Colorful Quadrantid Meteor

Meteors can be colorful.While the human eye usually cannot discern many colors, cameras often can.Pictured is a Quadrantids meteor captured by camera over Missouri, USA, early this month that was not only impressively bright, but colorful.The radiant grit, likely cast off by asteroid 2003 EH1,blazed a path across Earth’s atmosphere. Colors in meteors usually originate from ionized elements released as the meteor disintegrates, with blue-green typically originating from magnesium, calcium radiating violet, and nickel glowing green.

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White Dwarf Atmospheres Might Contain the Pulverized Crusts of Their Dead Planets

Astronomers have developed a new technique to search for exoplanets – by looking for their crushed up bones in the atmospheres of white dwarfs. And it’s working. Continue reading “White Dwarf Atmospheres Might Contain the Pulverized Crusts of Their Dead Planets” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/149912/white-dwarf-atmospheres-might-contain-the-pulverized-crusts-of-their-dead-planets/

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Neutrinos Have a Newly Discovered Method of Interacting With Matter, Opening up Ways to Find Them

The neutrino is a confounding little particle that is believed to have played a major role in the evolution of our Universe. They also possess very little mass, have no charge, and interact with other particles only through the weak nuclear force and gravity. As such, finding evidence of their interactions is extremely difficult and requires advanced facilities that are shielded to prevent interference.

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A robot submarine could explore Titan’s deepest sea

A new study of data from NASA’s bountiful Cassini mission shows that Titan’s largest methane sea, Kraken Mare, is at least 1,000 feet – 300 meters – deep near its center. That’s plenty of room for a future robotic submarine to explore. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/titans-largest-sea-kraken-mare-is-1000-feet-deep

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Lunar Halo over Snowy Trees

Have you ever seen a halo around the Moon? This fairly common sight occurs when high thin clouds containing millions of tiny ice crystals cover much of the sky. Each ice crystal acts like a miniature lens. Because most of the crystals have a similar elongated hexagonal shape, light entering one crystal face and exiting through the opposing face refracts 22 degrees, which corresponds to the radius of the Moon Halo.

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Why is there something instead of nothing?

Why is there is a universe at all? The question is a challenging one because it seems perfectly possible that there might have been nothing whatsoever – no Earth, no stars, no galaxies, no universe. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/why-does-universe-exist

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JADES will go deeper than the Hubble Deep Fields

Astronomers announced this month that a new deep-field survey called JADES will be carried out with the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble’s much-anticipated successor. The Webb is due to launch later this year. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/jades-deep-field-surveys-epoch-of-1st-galaxies

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Asteroids in the Distance

Rocks from space hit Earth every day. The larger the rock, though, the less often Earth is struck. Many kilograms of space dust pitter to Earth daily.Larger bits appear initially as a bright meteor. Baseball-sized rocks and ice-ballsstreak through our atmosphere daily,most evaporating quickly to nothing. Significant threats do exist for rocks near 100 meters in diameter, whichstrike the Earth roughly every 1000 years.

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2020 Ties for the Hottest Year on Record

According to multiple sources – which includes NASA, the NOAA, the Berkeley Earth research group, and the Met Office Hadley Centre (UK) – global temperatures over the past few years have been some of the hottest on record. This is the direct result of anthropogenic factors like overpopulation, urbanization, deforestation, and increased greenhouse gas emissions (like carbon dioxide and methane).

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Watch an ISS spacewalk February 1

On Monday, February 1, 2 NASA astronauts will perform the 2nd in a pair of International Space Station spacewalks to finish installing a European science platform and complete long-term battery upgrade work. How to watch live. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/watch-iss-spacewalk-feb2021

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Southern Sky at 38,000 Feet

Celestial sights of the southern sky shine above acloudy planet Earth in this gorgeous night sky view.The scene was captured from an airliner’s flight deck at 38,000 feeton a steady westbound ride to Lima, Peru.To producethe sharp airborne astrophotograph,the best of a series of shortexposures were selected and digitally stacked.The broad band of thesouthern Milky Way begins at top left withthe darkCoalsack Nebulaand Southern Cross.

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We Now Have a 3D Map of The 525 Closest Brown Dwarfs

Zooniverse brings out the best of the internet – it leverages the skills of average people to perform scientific feats that would be impossible otherwise. One of the tasks that a Zooniverse project called Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 has been working on has now resulted in a paper cataloguing 525 brown dwarfs, including 38 never before documented ones.

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OSIRIS-REx is Heading for Home in May

The OSIRIS-REx team decided to delay the spacecraft’s departure from asteroid Bennu for two months. The departure window opens in March 2021, and the original plan had OSIRIS-REx setting course for Earth on March 3, to bring home the asteroid samples it collected last October. Now, a revised timeline has the spacecraft leaving Bennu on May 10, 2021.

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Saturn Got Its Tilt From Its Moons

One of the fundamental tenets of physics is that two objects, now matter how different their size, exert a force on each other. In most cases the size makes a big difference, with the larger objects enacting a much greater force on the smaller one. However, over long periods of time, even much smaller objects can have an effect on the larger object in the pair.

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Iceland is a Similar Environment to Ancient Mars

Mars is often referred to as “Earth’s Twin” because of the similarities the two planets have. In fact, Mars is ranked as the second most-habitable planet in the Solar System behind Earth. And yet, ongoing studies have revealed that at one time, our two planets had even more in common. In fact, a recent study showed that at one time, the Gale Crater experienced conditions similar to what Iceland experiences today.

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North American Nightscape

On January 21, light from the Moon near first quarter illuminated theforeground in this snowy mountain and night scene.Known as The Lions, the striking pair of mountain peaks are north ofVancouver,British Colombia, Canada, North America, planet Earth.Poised above the twin summits, left of Deneb alpha star ofthe constellation Cygnus, are emission regionsNGC 7000 and IC 5070.

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Messier 66 Close Up

Big, beautifulspiral galaxy Messier 66lies a mere35 million light-years away.The gorgeous island universe isabout 100 thousand light-years across, similar in size to the Milky Way.This reprocessedHubble Space Telescopeclose-up view spans a region about 30,000light-years wide around the galactic core.It shows the galaxy’s disk dramatically inclined to our line-of-sight.Surrounding its bright core, the likely home of a supermassive black hole,obscuring dust lanes and young, blue star clusters sweepalong spiral armsdotted with the tell-tale glow of pinksh star forming regions.

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Galileo’s Probe Discovered a Mystery at Jupiter, Juno Finally Helped Solve it

In 1995, NASA’s Galileo mission dropped a probe into the atmosphere of Jupiter and found it to be far drier than expected. In 2020, NASA’s follow-up mission Juno explained the mystery: it involves mushballs. Continue reading “Galileo’s Probe Discovered a Mystery at Jupiter, Juno Finally Helped Solve it” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Low-Cost Approach to Scanning Historic Glass Plates Yields an Astronomical Surprise

A new process highlights an innovative way to get old glass plates online… and turned up a potential extra-galactic discovery over a century old. You never know what new discoveries might be hiding in old astronomical observations. For almost a hundred years starting in the late 19th century, emulsion-coated dry glass plate photography was the standard of choice used by large astronomical observatories and surveys for documenting and imaging the sky.

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All The Gravitational Waves Detected So Far

Few events in the astronomy community were received with more fanfare than the first detection of gravitational waves, which took place on September 14th, 2015. Since then, different events have been recorded using the same techniques. Many include data from other observational platforms, as the events that normally create gravitational waves are of interest to almost everyone in the astronomical community.

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Astronomers Find a Planet Like Jupiter, but It Doesn’t Have any Clouds

Can you picture Jupiter without any observable clouds or haze? It isn’t easy since Jupiter’s latitudinal cloud bands and its Great Red Spot are iconic visual features in our Solar System. Those features are caused by upswelling and descending gas, mostly ammonia. After Saturn’s rings, Jupiter’s cloud forms are probably the most recognizable feature in the Solar System.

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Space and Sustainability: How the Lessons of Biosphere 2 Inspired SAM²

A lot has been said, penned, and documented about the famous experiment known as “Biosphere 2” (B2). For anyone whose formative years coincided with the early 90s, this name probably sounds familiar. Since the project launched in 1991, it has been heavily publicized, criticized, and was even the subject of a documentary – titled “Spaceship Earth” – that premiered in May of 2020.

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There are Seven Rocky Planets in the TRAPPIST-1 System and They’re Surprisingly Similar

The TRAPPIST-1 system has long be studied by exoplanet hunters due to its unique quantity of planets that happen to also be Earth sized. In a recent paper, a team of scientists led by Eric Agol at the University of Washington, dove into more detail on the density of the seven known planets in the system, and, surprisingly, found that they were all very similar.

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Why do Planetary Nebulae Look the Way They Do?

Planetary nebulae are the most beautiful objects in the night sky. Their gossamer shells of gas are otherworldly and evocative. They captivate the eye, and viewers need no scientific knowledge to get drawn in. How are they created, and why do they look so beautiful? Continue reading “Why do Planetary Nebulae Look the Way They Do?

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Astronomers Hoped to see Evidence of Dark Matter Particles Inside Betelgeuse. No Luck

Axions are a hypothetical particle that might explain the existence of dark matter. But it might occasionally interact with normal matter, especially in the cores of stars. A team of physicists have searched for evidence of axions in Betelgeuse and come up with nothing. It doesn’t mean that the axion doesn’t exist, but it does mean that it will be harder to find.

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Away From the Light Pollution of the Inner Solar System, New Horizons was Able to see how Dark the Universe Really is

Just how dark is the universe, anyway? It’s a pretty hard thing to measure when we’re sitting this close to the sun. But NASA’s New Horizons probe is so far away that the images it takes of the distant universe are able to deliver the most accurate measurement ever of the universe’s diffuse background light.

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NASA has Chosen 4 new Pioneer Missions: Aspera, Pandora, StarBurst, and PEUO

Budget constraints are a major consideration for every space program throughout the world. Lately, NASA has taken a particularly bold approach, by not only innovating through novel ideas that could do great science, but innovating with the way they fund those missions. A good example of this innovation is the Astrophysics Pioneers program, which is a NASA fund program targeted at early- to mid-career researchers.

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One of the Oldest Stars in the Galaxy has a Planet. Rocky Planets Were Forming at Nearly the Beginning of the Universe

Would it be surprising to find a rocky planet that dates back to the very early Universe? It should be. The early Universe lacked the heavier elements necessary to form rocky planets. But astronomers have found one, right here in the Milky Way. Continue reading “One of the Oldest Stars in the Galaxy has a Planet.

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You Know it’s Spring on Mars When the Carbon Dioxide is Starting to Sublimate

The northern hemisphere of Mars is beginning to thaw from winter. But for the red planet, that doesn’t mean that birds will sing and flowers will bloom. It means that the carbon dioxide will sublimate. It’s still beautiful though. Continue reading “You Know it’s Spring on Mars When the Carbon Dioxide is Starting to Sublimate”

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The Vertical Magnetic Field of NGC 5775

How far do magnetic fields extend up and out of spiral galaxies? For decades astronomers knew only that some spiral galaxies had magnetic fields. However, after NRAO’s Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope (popularized in the movie Contact) was upgraded in 2011, it was unexpectedly discovered that these fields could extend vertically away from the disk by several thousand light-years.

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Striped brown dwarf looks a lot like Jupiter

The surface features of brown dwarfs – objects midway in mass between planets and stars – can’t be seen. But researchers have found a way to reveal Jupiter-like stripes and bands in the atmosphere of the closest brown dwarf, Luhman 16B. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/brown-dwarf-luhman-16b-jupiter-like-stripes

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NASA mole failed to dig deep into Mars. What’s next?

The mission team for NASA’s InSight lander called off its attempts to try to dig deeper into Mars with the heat probe known as “the mole.” Meanwhile, the rest of the mission gained an extension to December 2022. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/nasa-calls-halt-to-attempts-by-insight-mole-to-dig-into-mars

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Iodine thruster could help clear space junk

A commercial nanosat called SpaceTy Beihangkongshi-1 – launched November 2020 – has successfully used an iodine thruster to change its orbit around Earth. This new thruster might help clear space junk by steering small satellites, at the end of their missions, back into Earth’s atmosphere where they’d burn up. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.

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Hear the strange music of distant planetary system TOI-178

In the animation in this post, the rhythmic movement of newly discovered planets around the star TOI-178 is represented through a musical harmony, created by attributing a note (in the pentatonic scale) to each of the planets. Hear the music of these planets. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/star-system-tio-178-planets-in-resonance-orbits-cheops

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Watch ISS spacewalk January 27

This morning – Wednesday, January 27 – 2 NASA astronauts perform the first in a pair of International Space Station spacewalks, to finish installing a European science platform and complete long-term battery upgrade work. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/watch-iss-spacewalk-jan2021

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New evidence for multiple ice ages on Mars

Earth has had at least 5 major ice ages. Now it appears Mars – the next planet outward from the sun – has undergone anywhere from half a dozen to 20 ice ages in the past several hundred million years. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/new-evidence-for-multiple-ice-ages-on-mars

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E.T. signal from Proxima Centauri? A conversation with Breakthrough Initiatives' Pete Worden

Space.com recently talked with Breakthrough Initiatives executive director Pete Worden about a signal coming from the vicinity of Proxima Centauri, and about the search for alien life more generally. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/proxima-centauri-signal-breakthrough-listen-pete-worden-interview

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Lightweight Iodine Thruster Could Help Solve Space Junk Problem

Rocket fuel is one of the most important components of any maneuverable spacecraft. That is also true for ion thrusters – while they don’t use traditional chemical fuel, they do still need a feed source for their ion engines. Now, a team from ThrustMe, a spinoff of the École Polytechnique and CNRS, has designed a type of ion thruster using a completely novel propellant – iodine.

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Central NGC 1316: After Galaxies Collide

How did this strange-looking galaxy form? Astronomers turn detectives when trying to figure out the cause of unusual jumbles of stars, gas, and dust like NGC 1316.Inspection indicates that NGC 1316 is an enormous elliptical galaxy that somehow includes dark dust lanes usually found in a spiral galaxy. Detailed images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows details, however, that help in reconstructing the history of this gigantic tangle.

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Apollo landers, Neil Armstrong’s bootprint and other human artifacts on Moon officially protected by new US law

It’s hard to care about bootprints sunk in soil 238,900 miles away as humanity suffers the combined burden of an unforgiving virus and a political unease. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/apollo-landers-neil-armstrongs-bootprint-and-other-human-artifacts-on-moon-officially-protected-by-new-us-law

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3-D Printing on the Moon. From Regolith to Paste to Useful Objects and Structures

In the academic literature, review papers are widespread, and can help ground discussion on a specific topic by bringing new researchers up to speed as well as allowing experienced hands to catch up on some topics they might have otherwise missed. Anytime a new one on a topic of space exploration is published, it helps move understanding of the entire discipline forward, even if it might not directly contribute to furthering research itself.

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Starships Will be Launching From These Oil Drilling Platforms Bought by SpaceX

Over the years, Elon Musk has been rather open about how he (and the company he founded) plan to make space more accessible and allow humanity to become an “interplanetary species.” A key element to this plan is the Starship and Super-Heavy launch system, which will allow for regular trips to the Moon as well as the eventual creation of the first human colony on Mars.

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A New Idea to Harness Energy From Black Holes

Fifty years ago, English mathematical physicist and Nobel-prize winner Roger Penrose proposed that energy could be extracted from the space around a rotating black hole. Known as the ergosphere, this region lies just outside an event horizon, the boundary within which nothing can escape a black hole’s gravitational pull (even light).

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The Largest Sea On Titan Could Be Over 300 Meters Deep

The Earth’s oceans are notoriously unexplored, and stand as a monument to the difficult of exploring underwater. But they aren’t the only unexplored seas in the solar system. Titan’s vast collection of liquid methane lakes are another challenge facing future solar system explorers. A submarine mission to Saturn’s largest moon has long been under discussion.

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Southern Cross over Chilean Volcano

Have you ever seen the Southern Cross?This famous four-star icon is best seen from Earth’s Southern Hemisphere.The featured image was taken last month in Chile and captures the Southern Cross just to the left of erupting Villarrica, one of the most active volcanos in our Solar System. Connecting the reddest Southern Cross star Gacrux through the brightest star Acrux points near the most southern location in the sky: the South Celestial Pole (SCP), around which all southern stars appear to spin as the Earth turns.

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The “Happy Face Crater” on Mars Has Been Changing Right Before Our Eyes

Who has an even bigger grin than ten years ago? This goofy-looking crater on Mars. Continue reading “The “Happy Face Crater” on Mars Has Been Changing Right Before Our Eyes” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/149746/the-happy-face-crater-on-mars-has-been-changing-right-before-our-eyes/

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Virgin Orbit Successfully Launches a Batch of Satellites From an Airplane

On Sunday, January 17th, Virgin Orbit conducted the second launch test of its LauncherOne rocket, which the company will use to deploy small satellites to orbit in the coming years. The mission (Launch Demo 2) went smoothly and validated the company’s delivery system, which consists of the rocket air launching from a repurposed 747-400 (named Cosmic Girl).

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The Universe in Formation. Hubble Sees 6 Examples of Merging Galaxies

Audio narration by the author is available above 10 billion years ago, galaxies of the Universe were ablaze with the light of newly forming stars. This epic phase of history is known as “Cosmic Noon” – the height of all star creation. Galaxies like our Milky Way aren’t creating stars at nearly the rates they were in the ancient past.

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You Can Actually See the Milky Way’s Wave When You Map Its Stars

Spiral galaxies are one of the most commonly known types of galaxy. Most people think of them as large round disks, and know that our Milky Way is counted among their number. What most people don’t realize is that many spiral galaxies have a type of warping effect that, when you look at them edge on, can make it seem like they are forming a wave.

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Massive Nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 2841

It is one of the more massive galaxies known.A mere 46 million light-years distant, spiral galaxy NGC 2841can be found in the northern constellation ofUrsa Major.This sharp view of the gorgeousisland universeshows off a striking yellow nucleus and galactic disk.Dust lanes, small, pink star-forming regions, and young blue star clustersare embedded in the patchy, tightlywoundspiral arms.

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A Habitat at Ceres Could be the Gateway to the Outer Solar System

In the near future, humanity stands a good chance of expanding its presence beyond Earth. This includes establishing infrastructure in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), on the surface of (and in orbit around) the Moon, and on Mars. This presents numerous challenges, as living in space and on other celestial bodies entails all kinds of potential risks and health hazards – not the least of which are radiation and long-term exposure to low gravity.

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Mars has Been Through Many Ice Ages in the Last Billion Years

Like Earth, Mars has experienced periods of extreme glaciation or ice sheet coverage, which are known as ice ages. As these ice ages come and go, glaciers expand and contract along the planet’s surface, grinding huge boulders down to smaller rocks. By examining the size of boulders and rocks at specific locations on Mars, we should be able to understand the history of the Martian ice ages.

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The One Place on the Space Station Astronauts Aren’t Supposed to Clean

While most of us are now more fastidious about keeping our homes and workplaces clean, on board the International Space Station, cleanliness is imperative. Of high importance is anti-bacterial measures, since bacteria tends to build up in the constantly-recycled air inside the ISS. Every Saturday in space is “cleaning day” where surfaces are wiped down, and the astronauts vacuum and collect trash.

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Only 31 Magnetars Have Ever Been Discovered. This one is Extra Strange. It’s Also a Pulsar

Some of the most stunningly powerful objects in the sky aren’t necessarily the prettiest to look at. But their secrets can allow humanity to glimpse some of the more intricate details of the universe that are exposed in their extreme environs. Any time we find one of these unique objects it’s a cause for celebration, and recently astronomers have found an extremely unique object that is both a magnetar and a pulsar, making it one of only 5 ever found.

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Recycling Cassiopeia A

Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnacesignite and create heavy elements in their cores.After a few million years, theenriched material is blastedback into interstellar space where star formation can begin anew.The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an exampleof this final phase of the stellar life cycle.

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Astronomers Confirm That Darksat is About Half as Bright as an Unpainted Starlink

Space-based internet service is poised to revolutionize the internet and bring high-speed connectivity to countless communities worldwide. Programs like SpaceX’s Starlink paint a picture of a bright future for the citizens of the world. Like many revolutionary technological advances, there is a dark side to Starlink. The constellation of hundreds (and eventually thousands) of satellites reflect light back to the Earth, impinging on the darkness of the skies for professional astronomers and stargazers alike.

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The First Cubesat With a Hall-Effect Thruster has Gone to Space

Student-led teams aren’t the only ones testing out novel electric propulsion techniques recently. Back in November, a company called Exotrail successfully tested a completely new kind of electric propulsion system in space – a small hall-effect thruster. Continue reading “The First Cubesat With a Hall-Effect Thruster has Gone to Space”

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The Magnetic Fields Swirling Within the Whirlpool Galaxy

Messier objects are some of the most imaged objects in the universe. In part that’s because many of them are so visibly appealing. A good example of that is the Whirlpool galaxy, M51, which recently received an even more dramatic visual representation with a new photo released by NASA. In it, the magnetic fields that are holding the galaxy together and tearing it apart at the same time are clearly visible.

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The Solar Wind is More Attracted to the Earth’s North Pole Than the South. Why?

Likely the most well-known result of the Earth’s magnetic field are the Aurora Borealis and Australis (Northern and Southern Lights). When chargers particles from the solar wind run into the Earth’s magnetic field, they can occasionally elicit spectacular light displays. For years now, scientists have thought that the charged particles that cause those displays were sent in equal numbers toward the north and south pole.

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What Happens to Their Supermassive Black Holes When Galaxies Collide?

What’s better than two gigantic galaxies swirling into one another until they collide? How about three galaxies swirling into one another until they collide – and they all have supermassive black holes at their core to boot! Recently, a team led by Dr. Adi Foord of Stanford combed through data from the WISE mission and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to search for instances of three galaxies colliding with one another.

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The Milky Ring

An expanse of cosmic dust, stars and nebulae alongthe plane of our Milky Way galaxy form a beautiful ring inthis projected all-sky view.The creative panorama covers the entiregalaxy visiblefrom planet Earth,an ambitious 360 degree mosaic that took two years to complete.Northern hemisphere sites in western China and southern hemispheresites in New Zealand were usedto collect the image data.

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NASA “mole’s” attempts to dig into Mars failed. What’s next?

The mission team for NASA’s InSight lander called off its attempts to try to dig deeper into Mars with the heat probe known as “the mole.” Meanwhile, the rest of the mission gained an extension to December 2022. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/nasa-calls-halt-to-attempts-by-insight-mole-to-dig-into-mars

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Here’s the Extremely New Website for the Extremely Large Telescope

In the vein of “go big or go home,” the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has launched a stunning new website to showcase information about — and match the scale of — its Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the highly anticipated observatory scheduled to have first light in 2025. Continue reading “Here’s the Extremely New Website for the Extremely Large Telescope”

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Planets are Finally Being Discovered Orbiting Farther From Their Stars

Discovering exoplanets is a difficult job. Given the challenges, it’s amazing that we’ve found any at all. But astronomers are clever, so there are currently more than 4,300 confirmed exoplanets. They range from small Mercury-sized worlds to planets larger than Jupiter, but most of them have one thing in common: they orbit close to their home star.

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M78 Wide Field

Interstellardust clouds andglowing nebulaeabound in the fertileconstellation of Orion.One of thebrightest, M78,is centered in this colorful,wide field view,covering an area north ofOrion’s belt.At a distance of about 1,500 light-years, thebluish reflection nebula is around 5 light-years across.Its tint is due to dustpreferentiallyreflecting the blue lightof hot, young stars.Reflection nebula NGC 2071 isjustto the left of M78.

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A New Satellite Is Going to Try to Maintain Low Earth Orbit Without Any Propellant

Staying afloat in space can be deceptively hard. Just ask the characters from Gravity, or any number of the hundreds of small satellites that fall into the atmosphere in a given year. Any object placed in low Earth orbit (LEO) must constantly fight against the drag caused by the small number of air molecules that make it up to that height.

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The Magnetic Field of the Whirlpool Galaxy

Do magnetic fields always flow along spiral arms? Our face-on view of the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) allows a spectacularly clear view of the spiral wave pattern in a disk-shaped galaxy. When observed with a radio telescope, the magnetic field appears to trace the arms’ curvature. However, with NASA’s flying Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) observatory, the magnetic field at the outer edge of M51’s disk appears to weave across the arms instead.

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SpaceX’s 1st Starlink launch of 2021 went off without a hitch today

SpaceX launched 60 more of its Starlink satellites early Wednesday. SpaceX ultimately intends to launch tens of thousands of these satellites into low-Earth orbit. The goal is global internet access. Here’s how to watch the launch, and why astronomers are concerned. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/spacexs-1st-starlink-launch-of-2021

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This is What the Sun Looked Like for Every Day in 2020

Have you ever seen the videos of people taking daily selfies of themselves over the course of years or even decades? Now the sun has started it’s own series of pictures – with 366 complete pictures from the year 2020, captured by the European Space Agency’s Proba-2 satellite. Continue reading “This is What the Sun Looked Like for Every Day in 2020”

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SpaceX’s 1st Starlink launch of 2021 is scheduled for today

The first launch of 2021 of SpaceX’s controversial Starlink satellites is set for early Wednesday. SpaceX ultimately intends to launch tens of thousands of these satellites into low-Earth orbit. The goal is global internet access. Here’s how to watch the launch, and why astronomers are concerned. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/spacexs-1st-starlink-launch-of-2021

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According to the Math, it’s Highly Unlikely That an Intelligent Civilization is Located at Alpha Centauri

In December of 2020, the world got a bit of a pre-holiday surprise when it was announced that astronomers at the Parkes radio telescope in Australia had detected a “tantalizing” signal coming from Proxima Centauri (the red dwarf companion of the Alpha Centauri system). Afterward, researchers at Breakthrough Listen consulted the data on the signal – Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1 (BLC1) – and noted the same curious features.

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A Lunar Corona with Jupiter and Saturn

Why does a cloudy moon sometimes appear colorful?The effect, called a lunar corona, is created by the quantum mechanical diffraction of light around individual, similarly-sized water droplets in an intervening but mostly-transparent cloud.Since light of different colors has different wavelengths, each color diffracts differently.Lunar Coronae are one of the few quantum mechanical color effects that can be easily seen with the unaided eye.

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Thanks to Perseverance, We’re Finally Going to Hear What Mars Sounds Like

Many consider the various rovers we’ve sent to Mars as the next best thing to sending a geologist to the Red Planet. Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity have carried all the necessary equipment similar to what human geologists use on Earth, and are able to navigate the terrain, “see” the landscape with the various cameras, pick up rock and dust samples with scoops, and then analyze them with various onboard tools and equipment.

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James Webb Unfolds Sunshield

It’s almost time. Soon the James Webb Space Telescope will be on its way to the Sun/Earth L2 Lagrange point and will begin its at least 5-year science mission. Really, it’s going to happen. Despite several delays since the program began in 1996 and a budget that has exceeded the original by several billion dollars, the launch of the JWST seems close at hand.

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The UK is Considering Nuclear Propulsion in Space

If human beings intend to become an interplanetary species (or interstellar, for that matter), then we are going to need new propulsion methods that combine a significant level of thrust with fuel-efficiency. One option that NASA has been exploring for decades is spacecraft that rely on nuclear power, which can take the form of nuclear-electric or nuclear-thermal propulsion (NEP/NTP).

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Space Launch System Performs a Dramatic Hot Fire Test, Blasting With all 4 Engines at Once

Today, at close to 04:30 PM local time (CST), NASA achieved a major milestone with the development of the Space Launch System (SLS) – the heavy launch system they will use to send astronauts back to the Moon and crewed missions to Mars. As part of a Green Run Hot Fire Test, all four RS-25 engines on the SLS Core Stage were fired at once as part of the first top-to-bottom integrated test of the stage’s systems.

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The Medulla Nebula Supernova Remnant

What powers this unusual nebula?CTB-1 is the expanding gas shell that was left when a massive star toward the constellation of Cassiopeia exploded about 10,000 years ago.The star likely detonated when it ran out of elements, near its core, that could create stabilizing pressure with nuclear fusion.The resulting supernova remnant, nicknamed the Medulla Nebula for its brain-like shape, still glows in visible light by the heat generated by its collision with confining interstellar gas.

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Jets from Unusual Galaxy Centaurus A

The jets emanating fromCentaurus A are over a million light years long.These jets of streamingplasma,expelled by a giant black hole in the center of this spiral galaxy, light up this composite image ofCen A.Exactly how thecentral black holeexpels infalling matter remains unknown.After clearing the galaxy, however,the jets inflate largeradio bubbles that likely glow for millions of years.

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The Mountains of NGC 2174

This fantastic skyscapelies near the edgeof NGC 2174 a star formingregion about 6,400 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellationof Orion.It follows mountainous clouds of gas and dust carved bywinds and radiation from the region’snewborn stars, now foundscatteredin open star clusters embedded around the center of NGC 2174,off the top of the frame.

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A Plutonian Landscape

This shadowy landscapeof majestic mountains and icy plainsstretches toward the horizon on a small, distant world.It was captured from a range of about 18,000 kilometers whenNew Horizonslooked back toward Pluto,15 minutes after the spacecraft’s closest approach on July 14.The dramatic, low-angle, near-twilightscene follows rugged mountains formally known as Norgay Montesfrom foreground left, and Hillary Montes along the horizon,giving way to smooth Sputnik Planum atright.

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Is NASA about to get its first female leader?

The incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris may very well make history with their choice to lead the 62-year-old U.S. space agency. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/nasa-female-administrator-biden-presidency

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The Roman Space Telescope’s Version of the Hubble Deep Field Will Cover a 100x Larger Area of the Sky

Remember the Hubble Deep Field? And its successor the Hubble Ultra Deep Field? We sure do here at Universe Today. How could we forget them? Well, just as the Hubble Space Telescope has successors, so do two of its most famous images. And those successors will come from one of Hubble’s successors, NASA’s Roman Space Telescope.

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Astronomers see a Hint of the Gravitational Wave Background to the Universe

Gravitational-wave astronomy is still in its infancy. LIGO and other observatories have opened a new window on the universe, but their gravitational view of the cosmos is limited. To widen our view, we have the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav). Continue reading “Astronomers see a Hint of the Gravitational Wave Background to the Universe”

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Mars is Still an Active World. Here’s a Landslide in Nili Fossae

Since the 1960s and 70s, scientists have come to view Mars as something of a “dead planet.” As the first close-up images from orbit and the surface came in, previous speculation about canals, water, and a Martian civilization were dispelled. Subsequent studies also revealed that the geological activity that created features like the Tharsis Mons region (especially Olympus Mons) and Valles Marineris had ceased long ago.

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Oyin Oladejo of 'Star Trek: Discovery' talks diversity and elephants for 'Endlings' Season 2 on Hulu (exclusive interview)

Less than two weeks after “Star Trek Discovery” wrapped up its third season in January, the new season of “Endlings” — another space series featuring a “Star Trek” star, actor Oyin Oladejo. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/star-trek-actor-oyin-oladejo-endlings

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With Funding From Jeff Bezos, MethaneSAT Picks Elon Musk’s SpaceX for 2022 Launch

Billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are usually rivals on the final frontier, but they both have a role to play in MethaneSAT, a privately backed satellite mission aimed at monitoring methane emissions. Last November, the Bezos Earth Fund made a $100 million grant to the Environmental Defense Fund to support the satellite’s completion and launch.

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Aurora Slathers Up the Sky

Like salsa verde on your favorite burrito, a greenauroraslathers up the sky in this 2017 June 25 snapshot from theInternational Space Station.About 400 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth,the orbiting station is itselfwithin the upper realmof the auroral displays.Aurorae have thesignaturecolors of excited molecules and atoms at the low densitiesfound at extreme altitudes.

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Astronomers can use Pulsars to Measure Tiny Changes of Acceleration Within the Milky Way, Scanning Internally for Dark Matter and Dark Energy

As our Sun moves along its orbit in the Milky Way, it is gravitationally tugged by nearby stars, nebulae, and other masses. Our galaxy is not a uniform distribution of mass, and our Sun experiences small accelerations in addition to its overall orbital motion. Measuring those small tugs has been nearly impossible, but a new study shows how it can be done.

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Will Solar Cycle 25 Dazzle or Fizzle in 2021?

A new study suggests that Solar Cycle 25 may be more powerful than previously predicted. It’s the big question in solar astronomy for 2021 and the new decade. Will Solar Cycle 25 wow observers, or be a washout? A new study goes against the consensus, suggesting we may be in for a wild ride… if predictions and analysis of past solar cycle transitions hold true.

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Since There’s no Up or Down in Space, How do our Brains Deal With This?

Astronauts and cosmonauts in space have reported spatial disorientation problems, where they find it hard to get a sense of direction, or distinguish between what might be considered “up” or “down.” This is called “Visual Reorientation Illusions” (VRIs) where the spacecraft floors, walls and ceiling surfaces can suddenly exchange subjective identities.

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SpaceX Cargo Dragon succeeds in 1st autonomous undocking

SpaceX’s CRS-21 Cargo Dragon undocked from the International Space Station’s Harmony module on January 12, 2021, succeeding in the world’s first-ever autonomous undocking and testing of several new vehicle upgrades. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/space-x-cargo-dragon-1st-autonomous-undocking-jan-2021

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A new record for the most distant quasar

Astronomers have a new measurement for the distance of quasar J0313-1806, making it the new record-holder for the most distant quasar known. We’re seeing it just 670 million years after the Big Bang, or more than 13 billion light-years away. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/new-record-most-distant-quasar-black-hole-j0313-1806

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Arches Across an Arctic Sky

What are these two giant arches across the sky?Perhaps the more familiar one, on the left, is the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy.This grand disk of stars and nebulas here appears to encircle much of the southern sky.Visible below the stellar arch is the rusty-orange planet Mars and the extended Andromeda galaxy.

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A Robot Made of Ice Could Adapt and Repair Itself on Other Worlds

Some of the most tantalizing targets in space exploration are frozen ice worlds. Take Jupiter’s moon Europa for instance. Its warm salty subsurface ocean is buried under a moon-wide sheet of ice. What’s the best way to explore it? Maybe an ice robot could play a role. Continue reading “A Robot Made of Ice Could Adapt and Repair Itself on Other Worlds”

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With its New Extension, Juno is Going to be Visiting Jupiter’s Moons

The Juno mission to Jupiter has been extended to September 2025 – or however long the spacecraft can keep operating around Jupiter. While Juno has so far focused its attention on the giant planet alone, the mission extension will include observations of Jupiter’s rings and large moons, with targeted observations and close flybys planned of the moons Ganymede, Europa, and Io.

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Astronomers see Swirling Weather on the Closest Brown Dwarf

Brown dwarfs are the weird not-planets but not-stars in the universe, and astronomers have wondered for decades if their atmospheres are striped like Jupiter’s, or splotchy like the sun’s. A team of astronomers based at the University of Arizona used NASA’s TESS Observatory to find the answer: if you saw a brown dwarf for yourself, it would look more like a giant planet than a star.

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A Historic Brazilian Constellation

The night sky is filled with stories.Cultures throughout history have projected some of their most enduring legends onto the stars above.Generations of people see these stellar constellations, hear the associated stories, and pass them down.Featured here is the perhaps unfamiliar constellation of the Old Man, long recognized by the Tupi peoples native to regions of South America now known as Brazil.

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This is the Fireworks Galaxy. It’s had ten Supernovae in the Last Century Alone

Say hello to NGC 6946, otherwise known as the Fireworks Galaxy. This little galaxy is the most prolific producer of supernovae in the known universe, popping off those incredible explosions roughly once a decade. It’s secret? An incredibly high rate of star formation. Continue reading “This is the Fireworks Galaxy. It’s had ten Supernovae in the Last Century Alone”

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SpaceX’s Next Idea: to Catch Super Heavy Boosters With the Launch Tower

SpaceX is getting closer and closer to realizing the design for its Starship and Super Heavy launch system. Once complete, it will be the world’s first fully-reusable launch system and will facilitate trips to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), the Moon, and Mars. Construction began on the system’s booster element (Super Heavy) this past summer and, according to a recent tweet by Musk, will be “caught” by its launch tower.

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New and rare direct image of a brown dwarf

Astronomers have obtained one of the best images yet of a brown dwarf, an object in a mass range midway between stars and planets. This brown dwarf – called HD 33632 Ab – lies 86 light-years from our sun. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/new-brown-dwarf-direct-image-hd-33632-ab

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Star Cluster R136 Breaks Out

In the center of nearby star-forming region lies a huge cluster containing some of the largest, hottest, and most massive stars known.These stars, known collectively asstar cluster R136,part of the Tarantula Nebula, were captured in the featured image invisible light in 2009 through the Hubble Space Telescope.Gas and dust clouds in theTarantula Nebula, have been sculpted into elongated shapes by powerfulwinds andultraviolet radiationfrom these hot cluster stars.

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Winning Urban Farming Ideas for Mars!

If humans plan to go to live and work beyond Earth someday, they will need technologies that allow for sustainable living in alien environments. This is especially true of Mars, which is extremely cold, dry, and subject to more radiation than we are used to. On top of that, it also takes six to nine months to send spacecraft there, and that’s every two years when Earth and Mars are closest to each other in their orbits.

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SpaceX Releases a Recap Video of their SN8 Making its Hop Test!

To commemorate their greatest accomplishment to date with the Starship, SpaceX has released a recap video of the SN8 high-altitude flight. This was the 12.5 km hop test that took place on December 9th, 2020, which saw the SN8 prototype ascend to an altitude of 12.5 km (7.8 mi), conduct a “belly-flop” maneuver, and return to the launch pad.

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Titan: Moon over Saturn

Like Earth’s moon,Saturn’s largest moon Titanis locked in synchronous rotation.This mosaicof images recorded by the Cassini spacecraft in May of 2012shows its anti-Saturn side, the sidealways facing away from theringed gas giant.The only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere,Titan is the onlysolar system world besides Earth known tohave standing bodies of liquid on its surface and an earthlikecycle of liquid rain and evaporation.

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Stellar Flares May Not Condemn a Planet’s Habitability

Red dwarf stars are the most common kind of star in our neighbourhood, and probably in the Milky Way. Because of that, many of the Earth-like and potentially life-supporting exoplanets we’ve detected are in orbit around red dwarfs. The problem is that red dwarfs can exhibit intense flaring behaviour, much more energetic than our relatively placid Sun.

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The sun in 2020

See a whole year of sun images, an image a day for 2020, taken by ESA’s Proba-2 satellite. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/sun-in-2020-movie-images

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NGC 1365: Majestic Island Universe

Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majesticisland universe some 200,000light-years across.Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the chemicalconstellationFornax,NGC 1365 is adominant member of the well-studiedFornaxCluster of galaxies.This impressivelysharp color imageshows the intense, reddish star forming regions near theends of central bar and along the spiral arms,with details of the obscuring dust lanes cuttingacross the galaxy’s bright core.

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Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XVI: What is the “Dark Forest” Hypothesis?

Welcome back to our Fermi Paradox series, where we take a look at possible resolutions to Enrico Fermi’s famous question, “Where Is Everybody?” Today, we examine the possibility that Earth hasn’t been visited by aliens because interstellar travel is not very practical! In 1950, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi sat down to lunch with some of his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he had worked five years prior as part of the Manhattan Project.

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Is a solar flare the same thing as a CME?

Solar Cycle 25 is here, and that means – in the years ahead – more solar flares and more coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. People sometimes use the words interchangeably, but they’re not the same thing. Here’s the difference. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/is-a-solar-flare-the-same-thing-as-a-cme

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Total Solar Eclipse 2020

Along a narrow pathcrossing southern South America through Chileand Argentina, the final New Moon of 2020moved in front of the Sun on December 14 in the year’s onlytotal solar eclipse.Within about 2 days of perigee, the closest point in its ellipticalorbit, the New Moon’s surface is faintlylit by earthshinein this dramatic composite view.

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There Should be a few Supernovae in the Milky Way Every Century, but we’ve Only Seen 5 in the Last 1000 Years. Why?

Our galaxy hosts supernovae explosions a few times every century, and yet it’s been hundreds of years since the last observable one. New research explains why: it’s a combination of dust, distance, and dumb luck. Continue reading “There Should be a few Supernovae in the Milky Way Every Century, but we’ve Only Seen 5 in the Last 1000 Years.

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Japan to Launch ‘Wooden Satellite’ in 2023

What a proposed wooden satellite could (and could not) accomplish. A strange satellite proposal made at the end of 2020 by a Japanese company had many space pundits scratching their heads into 2021. The proposal came out of Kyoto University in partnership with Sumitomo Forestry in Japan, though most of the information on the project comes from a BBC post quoting Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut and Kyoto University professor Takao Doi, who flew aboard the U.

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Hostile space weather might not be all bad for exoplanet life

A new study from Northwestern University shows that solar flares – space weather – might not always be as dangerous for life on exoplanets as typically thought. In fact, it might even help astronomers discover alien life on distant worlds. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/hostile-space-weather-might-not-be-all-bad-for-exoplanet-life

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Striped Sand Dunes on Mars

Why are these sand dunes on Mars striped? No one is sure. The featured image shows striped dunes in Kunowsky Crater on Mars, photographed recently with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE Camera. Many Martian dunes are known to be covered unevenly with carbon dioxide (dry ice) frost, creating patterns of light and dark areas.

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Biggest asteroid to pass near Earth in 2021 is also one of the fastest

Asteroid 2001 FO32 will be sweeping past Earth at such a fast pace that, when it’s closest, observers using telescopes might be able to detect its motion – its drift in front of the stars – in real time. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/asteroid-2001-fo32-big-fast-pass-near-earth-2021

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Here’s the Asteroid Hayabusa2 is Going to be Visiting Next

Check out this image of asteroid 1998 KY26 from the Subaru Telescope. It’s not exactly beautiful, but it’s not intended to be. The compelling thing about this image isn’t its attractiveness, it’s the context. This small asteroid is the next target for Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Continue reading “Here’s the Asteroid Hayabusa2 is Going to be Visiting Next”

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Missing: Supermassive Black Hole With up to 100 BILLION Times the Mass of the Sun

The massive galaxy cluster Abell 2261 should have a supermassive black hole in its center. But it doesn’t. Astronomers have looked everywhere – even between the couch cushions. What’s going on? Continue reading “Missing: Supermassive Black Hole With up to 100 BILLION Times the Mass of the Sun” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Astronomers set a new Record and Find the Farthest Galaxy. Its Light Took 13.4 Billion Years to Reach us

Since time immemorial, philosophers and scholars have contemplated the beginning of time and even tried to determine when all things began. It’s only been in the age of modern astronomy that we’ve come close to answering that question with a fair degree of certainty. According to the most widely-accepted cosmological models, the Universe began with the Bang Bang roughly 13.

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Chang’e-5 Brought Home 1.7 Kilograms of Lunar Samples

China’s Chang’e-5 lunar lander retrieved about 1.7 kilograms (3.81 pounds) of samples from the Moon, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The Chang’e-5 sample return capsule landed in China’s Inner Mongolia region on December 16, 2020, successfully capping a 23-day odyssey that brought back the first lunar rocks since 1976.

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The Interior of Enceladus Looks Really Great for Supporting Life

When NASA’s Voyager spacecraft visited Saturn’s moon Enceladus, they found a body with young, reflective, icy surface features. Some parts of the surface were older and marked with craters, but the rest had clearly been resurfaced. It was clear evidence that Enceladus was geologically active. The moon is also close to Saturn’s E-ring, and scientists think Enceladus might be the source of the material in that ring, further indicating geological activity.

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The Small Cloud of Magellan

What is the Small Magellanic Cloud?It has turned out to be a galaxy. People who have wondered about this little fuzzy patch in the southern sky included Portuguese navigatorFerdinand Magellan and his crew, who had plentyof time to study the unfamiliar night sky of the south during thefirst circumnavigation of planet Earth in the early 1500s.

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Astronomers Discover Hundreds of High-Velocity Stars, Many on Their Way Out of the Milky Way

Within our galaxy, there are thousands of stars that orbit the center of the Milky Way at high velocities. On occasion, some of them pick up so much speed that they break free of our galaxy and become intergalactic objects. Because of the extreme dynamical and astrophysical processes involved, astronomers are most interested in studying these stars – especially those that are able to achieve escape velocity and leave our galaxy.

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What is a star?

It’s easy enough to say what a star is: one of those bright pointy things that twinkle in the night sky. But the actual definition of a star is as rich and colorful as the stars themselves. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/what-is-a-star-main-sequence

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Is there more than one dark energy?

What if there is more than one cosmological agent for dark energy? This mixture would have strange effects in our universe, making it potentially detectable with upcoming surveys. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/multiple-dark-energies-universe-string-theory

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Astronomers Improve Their Distance Scale for the Universe. Unfortunately, it Doesn't Resolve the Crisis in Cosmology

Measuring the expansion of the universe is hard. For one thing, because the universe is expanding, the scale of your distance measurements affects the scale of the expansion. And since light from distant galaxies takes time to reach us, you can’t measure what the universe is, but rather what it was.

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A Phoenix Aurora over Iceland

All of the other aurora watchers had gone home.By 3:30 am in Iceland, on a quiet September night, much of that night’s auroras had died down.Suddenly, unexpectedly, a new burst of particles streamed down from space, lighting up the Earth’s atmosphere once again.This time, surprisingly, pareidoliacally, the night lit up with an amazing shape reminiscent of a giant phoenix.

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The Personnel of Space Force Will be Called Guardians

In October of 2018, the Trump administration announced the creation of the U.S. Space Force (USSF), previously known as the U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC). The decision was formalized on December 20th, 2019, with the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020 (NDAA 2020). Since then, the USSF has taken steps to establish all the particulars of an independent service branch.

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21st Century Wet Collodion Moon

In the mid 19th century, one of the first photographic technologies usedto record the lunar surface was thewet-plate collodionprocess, notably employed by British astronomerWarren De la Rue.To capture an image, a thick, transparent mixture wasused to coat a glass plate, sensitized with silvernitrate, exposed at the telescope, and then developedto create a negative image on the plate.

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Galaxies and the South Celestial Pole

The South Celestial Poleis easy to spot in star trail images of the southern sky.The extension of Earth’s axis of rotation to the south, it’sat the center of all the southern star trail arcs.In this starry panoramastreching about 60 degrees across deep southern skiesthe South Celestial Pole is somewhere near the middle though,flanked by bright galaxies and southern celestial gems.

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Plans for a Mars Sample Return Mission Have Moved to the Next Stage

This past summer, NASA’s Perseverance rover launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. On February 18th, 2021, it will arrive on Mars and join in the search for evidence for past (and maybe even present) life. A particularly exciting aspect of this mission is the Mars Sample Return (MSR), a multi-mission effort that will send samples of Mars back to Earth for analysis.

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Trail of the Returner

Familiar starsof a northern winter’s night shine in this nightskyview, taken near Zhangye, Gansu, China and theborder with Inner Mongolia.During the early hours of December 17 Orion is near centerin the single exposure thatcaptures a fireball streakingacross the sky, almost as bright as yellowish Mars shining on the right.Splitting Gemini’s twin bright stars Castor and Polluxnear the top of the frame, thefireball’s trail and timing are consistent with thesecond skippingatmospheric entry of the Chang’e 5 mission’s returner capsule.

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A Steampunk Engine to Solve Your Satellite Woes!

In 1999, technicians from the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) and Stanford University developed the specifications for CubeSat technology. In no time at all, academic institutions were launching CubeSats to conduct all manner of scientific research and validate new satellite technologies. Since 2013, the majority of launches have been conducted by commercial and private entities rather than academia.

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Planetary Scientists Have Created a Map of Mars’ Entire Ancient River Systems

Navigating and mapping rivers has long been a central component in human exploration. Whether it was Powell exploring the Colorado’s canyons or Pizarro using the Amazon to try to find El Dorado, rivers, and our exploration of them, have been extremely important. Now, scientists have mapped out an entirely new, unique river basin.

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New ice-mapping Mars mission slated for 2026 launch

The Mars Ice Mapper is a proposed Mars satellite being developed by NASA in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency. Its job is to create detailed geographic maps of water ice across the surface of the red planet. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-ice-mapper-mission-in-2021-nasa-budget

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Hubble Releases a New Image of Neptune, Revealing a Rapidly Shifting Storm

Storms on Neptune seem to follow a pattern of forming, strengthening and then dissipating over the course of about two Earth years. But a Neptunian storm spotted in the planet’s atmosphere over two years ago has done something quite different: it has reversed course and is still going strong. Continue reading “Hubble Releases a New Image of Neptune, Revealing a Rapidly Shifting Storm”

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ESA is Working on its own Reusable Booster Stage

It’s an exciting time for space exploration! All around the world, national space agencies are sending missions to deep-space and preparing to send astronauts to orbit and the Moon. At the same time, the commercial aerospace industry (NewSpace) is expanding to include more launch providers and service new markets. These developments are adding up and making space more cost-effective and accessible.

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Dark storm on Neptune changes direction, escapes deadly fate

Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe unusual weather on the planet Neptune, not observed until now. They saw a large, dark storm on Neptune unexpectedly changing direction, thereby saving itself from looming destruction and possibly producing a smaller companion storm. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/large-dark-storm-change-direction-neptune

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Asteroids Crashing Into Dead Stars are Helping Explain Where the Universe’s Missing Lithium Went

What happened to all the lithium? The question has stumped astronomers for decades. While cosmologists have successfully predicted the abundance of the other light elements from the Big Bang, lithium has always come up short. Now, a team of astronomers may have found the reason: lithium-rich asteroids are smashing into white dwarves.

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Brines Could be Present on the Surface of Mars for up to 12 Hours, Never for a Full day

We are extremely interested in the possibility of water on Mars, because where there’s water, there’s the potential for life. But a new study throws a bit of a wet blanket (pun intended) on that tantalizing possibility. Unfortunately, it looks like even the saltiest of brines can only exist on the Martian surface for up to a few hours at a time.

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New Data Supports the Modified Gravity Explanation for Dark Matter, Much to the Surprise of the Researchers

Dark matter is an extremely good theory. It’s supported by a wealth of observational and computational data, which is why it’s part of the standard model of cosmology. But dark matter hasn’t been directly observed, so sometimes even strong supporters of dark matter are motivated to look at the alternatives. Continue reading “New Data Supports the Modified Gravity Explanation for Dark Matter, Much to the Surprise of the Researchers”

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To Help Trudge Through the Snow, the Chang’e-5 Recovery Team Wore Powered Exoskeletons

Other worlds aren’t the only difficult terrain personnel will have to traverse in humanity’s exploration of the solar system. There are some parts of our own planet that are inhospitable and hard to travel over. Inner Mongolia, a northern province of China, would certainly classify as one of those areas, especially in winter.

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M16: Inside the Eagle Nebula

From afar, the whole thing looks like an Eagle. A closer look at the Eagle Nebula,however, shows thebrightregion is actually a window into the center of a larger dark shell of dust. Through this window, a brightly-lit workshop appearswhere a whole open cluster of stars is being formed. In this cavity tall pillars and round globules of dark dust and cold molecular gasremain where stars are still forming.

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Cosmic Latte: The Average Color of the Universe

What color is the universe? More precisely, if theentire sky were smeared out,what color would the final mix be? This whimsical question came up when trying to determinewhat stars are commonplace in nearby galaxies.The answer,depicted above,is a conditionally perceived shade ofbeige.In computer parlance: #FFF8E7. To determine this, astronomers computationally averagedthe light emitted by one of the larger samples ofgalaxies analyzed: the 200,000galaxies of the2dF survey.

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New sunspot cycle could be among strongest on record

A study of oppositely charged magnetic field bands, moving in the sun’s northern and southern hemispheres, suggests the coming sunspot cycle – Cycle 25 – will be a particularly strong one. This result contradicts an earlier expert forecast, suggesting a weak Cycle 25. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/sunspot-cycle-25-among-strongest-on-record-says-ncar

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One of the Largest, Most Complete Einstein Rings Ever Seen. Astronomers Call it the “Molten Ring”

A very rare astronomical phenomenon has been in the headlines a lot recently, and for good reason. It will be hundreds of years until we can see Jupiter and Saturn this close to one another again. However, there are some even more “truly strange and very rare phenomena” that can currently be observed in our night sky.

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Fox Fur, Unicorn, and Christmas Tree

Clouds of glowing hydrogen gas fill this colorful skyscape in the faintbut fanciful constellationMonoceros,the Unicorn.A star forming regioncatalogedas NGC 2264, the complex jumble ofcosmic gas and dust is about 2,700 light-years distant andmixes reddish emission nebulaeexcited by energetic light fromnewborn stars with darkinterstellar dust clouds.Where the otherwise obscuring dust clouds lie closeto the hot, young stars they also reflect starlight, forming bluereflection nebulae.

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Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XV: What is the Percolation Theory Hypothesis?

Welcome back to our Fermi Paradox series, where we take a look at possible resolutions to Enrico Fermi’s famous question, “Where Is Everybody?” Today, we examine the possibility that Earth has been visited by aliens in the past, which is why we exist today! In 1950, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi sat down to lunch with some of his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he had worked five years prior as part of the Manhattan Project.

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A Single Filament of Gas Has Been Discovered That Stretches 50 Million Light-Years

Minute vibrating strings found in string theory are not the only ones that are of interest to physicists. The Standard Model of particle physics provides for a theory regarding a different type of string – this one is a string of very sparse gas strung over very long distances. In fact, the standard model predicts that a large percentage of “baryonic matter” (i.

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Northern Winter Night

Orion always seems to come up sideways onnorthern winter evenings.Those familiar stars of the constellation of the Hunterare caught above the trees in this colorful night skyscape.Not a star at all but still visible to eye,the GreatNebula of Orionshines below the Hunter’s belt stars.The camera’s exposurereveals the stellar nursery’s faint pinkish glow.

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Astronomy 2021: Top Events for the Coming Year

Eclipses, meteor showers, occultations and more in store for the next year of astronomy 2021. Ready for another exciting year of skywatching? 2020 produced several memorable astronomical events, including a surprise naked eye comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, the sure-fire Geminid meteors, and a fine, once in a lifetime close pairing of Jupiter and Saturn rounding out the year.

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Famous Earthrise photo taken on Christmas Eve

A Christmas Eve photograph showed humans their home world from a whole new perspective. This is the photo that’s said to have launched the environmental movement. It’s “Earthrise,” the iconic photo taken by astronaut William Anders on the 4th orbit of the moon aboard Apollo 8 on December 24, 1968.

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Portrait of NGC 1055

Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member ofa small galaxy groupa mere 60 million light-years away towardthe aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus.Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years,a little larger than ourown Milky Way galaxy.The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmicportraitof NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way.

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Space weather in Proxima’s vicinity dims hopes of habitable worlds

Astronomers used radio waves to study conditions in the vicinity of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our sun. The results suggest Proxima’s 2 known planets are likely bathed in intense radiation from this star, casting doubt on the planets’ potential for life. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/proxima-centauri-space-weather-planets-uninhabitable

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If a Planet Has a Lot of Methane in its Atmosphere, Life is the Most Likely Cause

The ultra-powerful James Webb Space Telescope will launch soon. Once it’s deployed, and in position at the Earth-Sun Lagrange Point 2, it’ll begin work. One of its jobs is to examine the atmospheres of exoplanets and look for biosignatures. It should be simple, right? Just scan the atmosphere until you find oxygen, then close your laptop and head to the pub: Fanfare, confetti, Nobel prize.

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A Very Interesting Radio Signal was Just Detected Coming from Proxima Centauri

There’s a powerful scene in the movie “Contact” (one of my favs) where lead character Ellie Arroway is sitting among an array of telescopes and hears the first alien signal – an ominous pulse – received by humanity. She races back to the control center where the array is pointed off target and then back to verify the signal.

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A Proposal for a Neutrino Detection Array Spanning 200,000 Square Kilometers

Sometimes in astronomy the acronym for a project fits it particularly well. That would absolutely be the case for the Giant Radio Array for Neutrino Detection, who hopes to scale up to a size of 200,000 sq km in an effort to measure ultra-high-energy tau-neutrinos. Is it ambitious? Yes, but that doesn’t really stop humanity from exploring when it wants to.

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Jupiter Meets Saturn: A Red Spotted Great Conjunction

It was time for their close-up.Last week Jupiter and Saturn passed a tenth of a degree from each other in what is known a Great Conjunction.Although the two planets pass each other on the sky every 20 years, this was the closest pass in nearly four centuries. Taken early in day of the Great Conjunction, the featured multiple-exposure combination captures not only both giant planets in a single frame, but also Jupiter’s four largest moons (left to right) Callisto, Ganymede, Io, and Europa – and Saturn’s largest moon Titan.

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A Canadian Astronaut Will be on Artemis 2, Making it the Second Nation to Send Humans Into Deep Space (but not Walk on the Moon)

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) recently announced that a Canadian astronaut will fly as part of the crew of Artemis II. This mission, scheduled for 2023, will see an Orion space capsule conduct a circumlunar flight where it flies around the Moon without landing. This will be the first of two crew opportunities that NASA will provide for Canadian astronauts on Artemis missions (as per the agreement).

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If Axions Explain Dark Matter, it Could be Possible to Detect Them Nearby Neutron Stars

As we continue to search for dark matter particles, one thing is very clear: they cannot be any of the elementary particles we’ve discovered so far. The particles would need to have mass, but interact with light only weakly. Of the known particles, neutrinos fit that description, but neutrinos have a tiny mass, and aren’t nearly enough to explain dark matter.

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China’s Planning to Launch a Space-Based Gravitational Wave Observatory in the 2030s: TianQin. Here’s how it’ll Stack up Against LISA

The successful detection of gravitational waves has been a game-changer for astronomy. And now the new frontier is in space, with satellite-based detection systems currently in development that will uncover some of the universe’s biggest mysteries. And while the team behind LISA is now developing that observatory in space, it just may be outclassed by a rival, TianQin, developed by the Chinese.

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This galaxy took only 500 million years to form

Galaxies are supposed to build up a very slowly, taking billions of years to acquire their vast bulk. But a newfound galaxy, appearing in the universe when it was only 1.8 billion years old, tells a different tale. It formed stars at a rate hundreds of times greater than the Milky Way, and was able to build itself up to host 200 billion stars in less than 500 million years – perhaps the universe’s greatest speed run.

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Solstice: Sunrises Around the Year

Does the Sun always rise in the same direction? No. As the months change, the direction toward the rising Sun changes, too. The featured image shows the direction of sunrise every month during 2019 as seen from near the city of Amman, Jordan. The camera in the image is always facing due east, with north toward the left and south toward the right.

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Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XIV: What is the Aurora Hypothesis?

Welcome back to our Fermi Paradox series, where we take a look at possible resolutions to Enrico Fermi’s famous question, “Where Is Everybody?” Today, we examine the possibility that the reason for the Great Silence is that we are “early to the party”! In 1950, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi sat down to lunch with some of his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he had worked five years prior as part of the Manhattan Project.

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Radio Emissions Have Been Detected from an Exoplanet

Invisible Glow Finding planets out in the Universe is pretty hard. I say this despite the fact that two planets in Earth’s skies are aligning tomorrow to form one of the brightest objects seen in hundreds of years. But while the brilliant Jupiter and Saturn are always visible to the naked eye, Neptune wasn’t directly observed until 1846 despite being in our own solar system.

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How did the solar system form?

The formation of the solar system is a challenging puzzle for modern astronomy and a terrific tale of extreme forces operating over immense timescales. Let’s dig in. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/how-did-solar-system-form

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A Volcanic Great Conjunction

Where can I see the Great Conjunction? Near where the Sun just set.Directionally, this close passing of Jupiter and Saturn will be toward the southwest. Since the planetary pair, the Sun, and the Earth are nearly in a geometric straight line, the planets will be seen to set just where the Sun had set – from every location on Earth.

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Here are NASA’s Science Priorities for the Artemis Missions

In October of 2024, NASA will send astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. After establishing orbit with their Orion spacecraft, a team of two astronauts (“the first woman and the next man”) will land in the Moon’s southern polar region. Over the course of a week, these astronauts will explore and investigate one of the region’s many permanently-shadowed craters.

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The European Extremely Large Telescope Just Got a 10% Budget Boost, Now Costing $1.5 Billion

Funding is an extremely important aspect of any large-scale science project. The whims of financial controllers can greatly expand or completely sink the efforts of hundred or thousands of other workers. Many times, funding announcements for large scientific projects focus on cuts or “cost-savings” which hobble the eventual end system they are trying to build.

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Conjunction after Sunset

How close will Jupiter and Saturn be at theirGreat Conjunction?Consider this beautiful triple conjunction of Moon, Jupiter andSaturn captured through clouds in the wintry twilight.The telephoto viewlooks toward the western horizonand the Alborz Mountains in Iran after sunset on December 17.The celestial gatheringmakes it easy to see Jupiter and fainter Saturn are separated on that date byroughly the diameter of the waxing crescent Moon.

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White House Encourages NASA to Work on Space-Based Nuclear Power and Propulsion Systems

In what’s likely to be one of the last space policy initiatives of his administration, President Donald Trump has issued a directive that lays out a roadmap for nuclear power applications beyond Earth. Space Policy Directive 6, released on December 16th, calls on NASA and other federal agencies to advance the development of in-space nuclear propulsion systems as well as a nuclear fission power system on the Moon.

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Pictures are coming in from Solar Orbiter

One of the best things about astronomy is that it’s a never-ending supply of awesome visuals. Almost every new mission or telescope provides new ways to see the universe, and when those are translated visually they can offer absolutely stunning images of some of the most interesting places in that universe.

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A Real River Valley on Mars, Filled With Virtual Water by @Kevinmgill

We are once again indebted to Kevin M. Gill, a science data visualization artist with a flair for the cosmos, for this beautiful rendering! The image first popped up on Kevin’s Twitter feed last week and can also be found (and downloaded) on his Flickr account. As he explained, the visual is his rendition of what the Hypanis Valles on Mars may have looked like back when water still flowed in the region.

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The Kilonova-Chasing Gravitational-Wave Optical Transient Observer is About to be Watching the Whole Sky

Lately there has been a flood of interest in gravitational waves. After the first official detection at LIGO / Virgo in 2015, data has been coming in showing how common these once theoretical phenomena actually are. Usually they are caused by unimaginably violent events, such as a merging pair of black holes.

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A new Type of Atomic Clock Uses Entangled Atoms. At Most, it Would be off by 100 Milliseconds Since the Beginning of the Universe

Measuring time is about counting steps. Whether it’s the drip-drip of a water clock, the tic-toc of a mechanical clock, or the oscillating crystal of a quartz watch. Any accurate timepiece is built around counting the steps of something regular and periodic. Nothing is perfectly regular, so no clock keeps perfect time, but our timepieces are getting very, very accurate.

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C1-23152: An ancient galaxy that built itself

A popular theory of galaxy formation suggests that small galaxies merged to form larger ones. But galaxy C1-23152 – 12 billion light-years from Earth – apparently formed itself from gas in the early universe, via exceedingly rapid star formation. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/c1-23152-galaxy-built-itself-not-via-galaxy-merger

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Diamond in the Sky

When the shadow of the Moon raced across planet Earth’ssouthern hemisphere on December 14,sky watchers along the shadow’s darkcentral pathwere treated to the only total solar eclipse of 2020.During theNew Moon’s shadow playthis glistening diamond ring was seenfor a moment, even in cloudy skies.Known as thediamond ring effect,the transient spectacle actually happens twice.

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Chuck Yeager, the First Man to Break the Sound Barrier has Died. He was 97

On Dec.7th, 2020, World War II flying ace and legendary test pilot General Chuck Yeager passed away while in hospital in Los Angeles. He was 97 years of age and is survived by his second wife, Victoria Yeager (nee Victoria Scott D’Angelo), and his three children, Susan, Don, and Sharon. Yeager was interred at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.

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Gemini s Meteors

Taken over the course of an hour shortly after local midnight on December 13,35 exposures were used to create this postcard from Earth.The composited night scene spans dark skies above the snowy ItalianDolomites during our fair planet’sannual Geminid meteor shower.Sirius, alpha star of Canis Major and the brightest star in the night,is grazed by a meteor streak on the right.

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China’s Chang’e-5 Probe Drops Off Moon Samples at the Climax of a Historic Mission

A Chinese probe has delivered the first samples to be collected from the Moon in more than 40 years, and its mission isn’t done yet. The Chang’e-5 sample return capsule floated down to the snowy plains of Inner Mongolia, capping an odyssey that began less than a month ago with the launch of a nine-ton spacecraft from south China’s Wenchang Space Launch Center.

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Next Generation Gravitational Wave Detectors Should be Able to see the Primordial Waves From the Big Bang

Gravitational-wave astronomy is still in its youth. Because of this, the gravitational waves we can observe come from powerful cataclysmic events. Black holes consuming each other in a violent chirp of spacetime, or neutron stars colliding in a tremendous explosion. Soon we might be able to observe the gravitational waves of supernovae, or supermassive black holes merging billions of light-years away.

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A second set of even larger bubbles has been found blasting out of the Milky Way’s center

The first-ever all-sky X-ray map of our galaxy, provided by the ESA’s eROSITA spacecraft, reveals two massive bubbles. These bubbles extend for up to 50,000 lightyears above and below the Milky Way, and are believed to be remnants of a massive outburst that occurred millions of years ago. Continue reading “A second set of even larger bubbles has been found blasting out of the Milky Way’s center”

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A Galaxy is Making New Stars Faster Than its Black Hole Can Starve Them for Fuel

A monster lurks at the heart of many galaxies – even our own Milky Way. This monster possesses the mass of millions or billions of Suns. Immense gravity shrouds it within a dark cocoon of space and time – a supermassive black hole. But while hidden in darkness and difficult to observe, black holes can also shine brighter than an entire galaxy.

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The RAVN-X is a new Autonomous Aircraft Designed to Launch Small Satellites

In the past twenty years, one of the biggest developments to take place in the realm of space exploration has been the growth of the commercial space industry (aka. NewSpace). As a result of growing demand and declining costs, more companies are coming to the fore to offer launch services that are making space more accessible and cost-effective.

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Gravitational interactions can drive comets and asteroids from Jupiter out to Neptune in just 10 years

Distances in the solar system are vast, and it typically takes millions of years for small bodies to migrate from one orbit to another. But researchers recently discovered a “super highway”, where interactions among the planets are capable of sending comets and asteroids from Jupiter to Neptune in as little as a decade.

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We’re About to Find Out How Well Biomining Works in Space

Mining is traditionally thought of as an activity that utilizes picks and shovels, or in more modern times, huge machines that can tear apart entire mountainsides in minutes. Industrial might isn’t the only way to rip apart rock though. A scalable and much more environmentally friendly way to access the materials mining seeks to extract is to use microbes.

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Great Conjunction: Saturn and Jupiter Converge

It’s happening.Saturn and Jupiter are moving closer and will soon appear in almost exactly the same direction. Coincidentally, on the night of the December solstice – the longest night of the year in the north and the longest day in the south – the long-awaited Great Conjunction will occur.Then, about six days from now, Saturn and Jupiter will be right next to each other – as they are every 20 years.

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You Can See the Spot Where Lava Broke Through the Wall of a Martian Crater and Began Filling it Up

At a fundamental level, Mars is a volcanic planet. Its surface is home to the Solar System’s largest extinct volcano, Olympus Mons, and another trio of well-known volcanoes at Tharsis Montes. And those are just the highlights: there are many other volcanoes on the surface. Though that volcanic activity ceased long ago, the planet’s surface tells the tale of a world disrupted and shaped by powerful volcanic eruptions.

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Catch an Awe-Inspiring Close Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21st

The solar system’s two massive gas giant planets pair up at dusk on December 21st, with a rare conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. A once-in-a-lifetime view is about to grace the dusk sky worldwide, closing out 2020 with one of the best astronomical events of the year. Continue reading “Catch an Awe-Inspiring Close Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21st”

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NASA announces 18 astronauts on its Artemis Team

Two members of the Artemis Team are expected to become the first American man and woman to return to the moon since 1972. The first Artemis mission – an uncrewed test mission known as Artemis 1 – is expected to launch in November 2021. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/what-is-nasas-artemis-program-moon

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If we Used the Sun as a Gravitational Lens Telescope, This is What a Planet at Proxima Centauri Would Look Like

As Einstein originally predicted with his General Theory of Relativity, gravity alters the curvature of spacetime. As a consequence, the passage of light changes as it encounters a gravitational field, which is how General Relativity was confirmed! For decades, astronomers have taken advantage of this to conduct Gravitational Lensing (GL) – where a distant source is focused and amplified by a massive object in the foreground.

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Geminid Meteors over Xinglong Observatory

Where do Geminid meteors come from? In terms of location on the sky, as the featured image composite beautifully demonstrates, the sand-sized bits of rock that create the streaks of the Geminids meteor shower appear to flow out from the constellation of Gemini.In terms of parent body,Solar System trajectories point to the asteroid 3200 Phaethon – but this results in a bit of a mystery since that unusual object appears mostly dormant.

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SpaceShipTwo’s First Powered Test Flight After Move to New Mexico Fizzles Out

Virgin Galactic lit up SpaceShipTwo’s rocket motor for the first time in the skies over New Mexico today, but only for an instant before the engine shut down and the plane glided back to a safe landing at Spaceport America. The flight test team had hoped that the SpaceShipTwo craft known as VSS Unity might make it all the way to the 50-mile space milestone with two test pilots at the controls.

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Is There a way to Detect Strange Quark Stars, Even Though They Look Almost Exactly Like White Dwarfs?

The world we see around us is built around quarks. They form the nuclei of the atoms and molecules that comprise us and our world. While there are six types of quarks, regular matter contains only two: up quarks and down quarks. Protons contain two ups and a down, while neutrons contain two downs and an up.

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Saturn and Jupiter in Summer 2020

During this northern summer Saturn and Jupiter were both near opposition,opposite the Sun in planet Earth’s sky.Their paired retrogrademotion, seen about every 20 years, is followedfrom 19 June through 28 Augustin this panoramic composite as they wandertogether between the stars in western Capricornus and easternSagittarius.But this December’s skies find them drawing even closer together.

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Comet Records From 1240 Accurately Date When a Byzantine Princess Died

Rome was the world’s first mega-empire. At its height it stretched from Western Europe to the Middle East, and over 50 million souls lived within its borders. Some historians think that number could’ve been way higher, up to 100 million. Rome got its start in the mid-8th century BC. It took centuries for that small city to grow into the Roman Empire, which reached its peak around AD 100.

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Why 2020 is a Great Year for the Geminid Meteors

Got clear skies? Then be sure to bundle up: the Geminid meteors—one of the best, sure-fire annual meteor showers—peaks this weekend… and near a New Moon, to boot. Continue reading “Why 2020 is a Great Year for the Geminid Meteors” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/149135/why-2020-is-a-great-year-for-the-geminid-meteors/

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NSF says Arecibo telescope will be dismantled

Heartbreaking news. After 57 years as a world-class resource for astronomy, the iconic Arecibo telescope is to be decommissioned, or withdrawn from service, the NSF announced today. The dish-type radio telescope – built into a natural depression in the landscape in Puerto Rico – appears to be headed for a “controlled disassembly.

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Messier Craters in Stereo

Many bright nebulae and star clusters in planet Earth’s skyare associated with the name ofastronomer Charles Messierfrom his famous 18th century catalog.His name is also given to these two large and remarkable craterson the Moon.Standouts in the dark,smooth lunar Sea of Fertility or MareFecunditatis, Messier (left) and Messier A have dimensions of 15 by 8and 16 by 11 kilometers respectively.

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That’s no Asteroid, it’s a Rocket Booster

Back in September, astronomers using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1 (Pan-STARRS1) noticed an object in a distant orbit around Earth. Initially, the object (designed 2020 SO) was thought that be a near-Earth Asteroid (NEA). But based on the curious nature of it’s and the way solar radiation appeared to be pushing it off course, NASA scientists theorized that 2020 SO might be a spent rocket booster.

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The start of the Sensoria M3 lunar mission is like Groundhog Day — Commander's Report: Lunar Day 2

Commander Musilova reports about how the start of the Sensoria M3 mission feels like Groundhog Day and the emotional whiplash she gets after leading several lunar analog missions back to back. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/hi-seas-sensoria-m3-moon-analog-mission-commander-report-1

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Watch: 25 years of the sun

This video, merging more than 2 decades of footage from SOHO cameras, captures thousands of sunspots, flares, and coronal mass ejections breaking out from the sun. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/sun-25-years-video-solar-flare-cme-sunspot

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Simeis 147: Supernova Remnant

It’s easy to get lost following the intricate looping filaments inthis detailed image ofsupernova remnant Simeis 147.Also cataloged as Sharpless 2-240 it goes by the popular nickname,the Spaghetti Nebula.Seen towardthe boundary of the constellations Taurus and Auriga,it covers nearly 3 degrees or 6 full moons on the sky.That’s about 150 light-years atthe stellar debris cloud’s estimated distance of 3,000 light-years.

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SpaceX’s SN8 Starship Soars and Belly-Flops, but Fails to Stick the Landing. Oh Well, Bring on the SN9!

At long last, SpaceX has conducted the first high-altitude test flight with its prototype Starship vehicle! During the launch, the eighth iteration of their spacecraft (SN8) flew to an altitude of 12.5 km (~7.8 mi; 41,000 ft) and conducted some fancy maneuvers before returning to its landing pad. Unfortunately, the landing was a bit hot and the SN8 exploded as soon as it touched down.

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A Company is Hoping to Race Rovers on the Moon

There is an argument to be made about playing sports in space. Differences in gravity, atmospheres, and even “weather” can make for some interesting variation of well known sports. And if there’s one sport that’s been around for as long as humanity, it’s racing. Viewers that tune in for the entertainment could provide a great source of funding revenue that could help support other, more scientifically rigorous programs.

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For 3rd data release, Gaia gazed toward galactic anticenter

The 3rd data release from the Gaia mission will provide astronomers with a “treasure trove” of information they didn’t have before. As they analyze Gaia’s data in the years ahead, we’re sure to learn new and surprising things about our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/gaia-3rd-data-release-edr3-dec-2020

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What are coronal mass ejections?

Coronal mass ejections – CMEs for short – are powerful eruptions near the surface of the sun that can ripple through our solar system and can interrupt satellites and power grids on Earth. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/what-are-coronal-mass-ejections

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Great Conjunction over Sicilian Lighthouse

Don’t miss the coming great conjunction.In just under two weeks, the two largest planets in our Solar System will angularly pass so close together in Earth’s sky that the Moon would easily be able to cover them both simultaneously. This pending planetary passage – on December 21 – will be the closest since 1623.

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Glycine Can Form In Interstellar Clouds

Author’s note: This article was written in collaboration with Vincent Kofman, a co-author of the paper it discusses and Post Doctoral Researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Amino acids are one of the most important building blocks of life as we know it. At its core, they contain an amino and an acid group, through which they can link together with other amino acids.

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Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XIII: The Ocean Worlds Hypothesis

Welcome back to our Fermi Paradox series, where we take a look at possible resolutions to Enrico Fermi’s famous question, “Where Is Everybody?” Today, we examine the possibility that the reason for the Great Silence is that many planets out there are just too watery! In 1950, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi sat down to lunch with some of his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he had worked five years prior as part of the Manhattan Project.

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Iceberg A-68A is Turning. Will it Miss South Georgia Island After All?

A massive iceberg named A-68A is on a long journey through the seas near Antarctica. Though largely empty, those waters do host some islands, most notably South Georgia Island. In recent weeks satellite images showed the iceberg heading right for South Georgia. That upcoming collision could have devastating consequences for wildlife that congregates on the island.

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It Took 50 Nights of Observations to Capture New Data on the Magellanic Clouds

The Magellanic Clouds are two of our closest neighbours, in galactic terms. The pair of irregular dwarf galaxies were drawn into the Milky Way’s orbit in the distant past, and we’ve been looking up at them since the dawn of humanity. Some of our ancestors even gathered pigments and created images of them in petroglyphs and cave paintings.

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A Sunspot Seen by the Most Powerful Solar Telescope in the World

A new image from the world’s largest solar observatory shows a spectacular, high resolution view of a gigantic sunspot. The sunpspot measures about 16,000 km (10,000 miles) across, large enough that Earth could fit inside. Continue reading “A Sunspot Seen by the Most Powerful Solar Telescope in the World” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Mammatus Clouds over Mount Rushmore

What’s that below those strange clouds?Presidents.If you look closely, you may recognize the heads of four former US Presidents carved into famous Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, USA. More obvious in the featured image are the unusual mammatus clouds that passed briefly overhead.Both were captured together by a surprised tourist with a quick camera in early September.

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20 Years of Hubble Photos Show how the Stingray Nebula is Fading

The Stingray Nebula is the youngest known planetary nebula. For half a century astronomers have witnessed its formation, and now they’ve noticed something strange: it’s fading away. Continue reading “20 Years of Hubble Photos Show how the Stingray Nebula is Fading” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/149147/20-years-of-hubble-photos-show-how-the-stingray-nebula-is-fading/

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This is Not a Photo of the Milky Way. It’s the Map of 1.8 Billion Stars From Gaia’s Major New Data Release

In 2013, the European Space Agency (ESA) deployed the Gaia mission to space, a next-generation observatory that will spend the next five years gathering data on the positions, distances, and proper motions of stars. The resulting data will be used to construct the largest 3D space catalog ever, totaling 1 billion stars, planets, comets, asteroids, quasars, and other celestial objects.

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2019 LD2: A very interesting orbit-hopping comet

Prior to Comet 2019 LD2, discovered last year, astronomers had never witnessed a comet in the process of orbiting from being between Jupiter and Neptune to orbiting inside Jupiter’s orbit. Now … witness the power of gravity! Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/comet-2019-ld2-transitioning-orbit-hopping-jupiter-family

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If There’s Subsurface Water Across Mars, Where is it Safe to Land to Avoid Contamination?

If Mars is a potential home for alien life, can we land safely anywhere on the surface without introducing contamination of Earth-born bacteria? A new study has some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Mars is likely completely inhospitable to life. The bad news is that Mars is…likely completely inhospitable to life.

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M16: Pillars of Star Creation

These dark pillars may look destructive, but they are creating stars. This pillar-capturing image of the inside of the Eagle Nebula, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, shows evaporating gaseous globules (EGGs) emerging from pillars of molecular hydrogen gas and dust. The giant pillars are light years in length and are so dense that interior gas contracts gravitationally to form stars.

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Chinese Spacecraft Dock in Lunar Orbit for Transfer of Moon Samples – Next Stop, Earth!

Two robotic Chinese spacecraft have docked in lunar orbit for the first time ever, in preparation for sending samples from the Moon to Earth. The lunar ascent module for China’s Chang’e-5 mission was captured by the metal claws of the mission’s orbiter at 5:42 a.m. Beijing time December 6th (2142 UTC December 5th), the China National Space Administration reported.

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Astronauts Will be Able to Extract Fuel, Air, and Water From Martian Brine

A little over a decade from now, NASA plans to send astronauts to Mars for the first time. This mission will build on decades of robotic exploration, collect samples from the surface, and return them to Earth for analysis. Given the immense distance involved, any operations on the Martian surface will need to be as self-sufficient as possible, which means sourcing whatever they can locally.

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Japan’s Hayabusa 2 Probe Drops Off Bits of an Asteroid and Heads for Its Next Target

Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe zoomed past Earth on December 5th and dropped off a capsule containing samples of an asteroid, finishing a six-year round trip. But the mission is far from over: While Hayabusa 2’s parachute-equipped sample capsule descended to the Australian Outback, its mothership set a new course for an encounter with yet another asteroid in 2031.

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Earth faster, closer to Milky Way black hole, than previously thought

A new survey of our galaxy by astronomers with VERA in Japan has shown that Earth is both moving faster and is closer to the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy than previously thought. But don’t worry, our planet is safe! Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/earth-faster-closer-to-milky-way-central-black-hole

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Mons Rumker in the Ocean of Storms

Mons Rumker,a 70 kilometer widecomplex of volcanic domes,rises some 1100 meters abovethe vast, smooth lunar mare known as Oceanus Procellarum,the Ocean of Storms.Daylight came to the area late last month.The lunar terminator, theshadow line between night and day, runs diagonally across theleft side in this telescopic close-up of a waxing gibbous Moonfrom November 27.

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An Astronomer Checked to see if There's a Secret Message in the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

In the New Testament, the book of John opens with In the beginning was the Word. Whether a poetic musing of philosophy or a declaration of faith, it encapsulates an idea that has been around a long time. If the cosmos was made, either by advanced aliens or a divine creator, might this architect have buried a message within the universe?

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25 Years of Solar Cycles in One Incredible SOHO Mosaic

For a quarter of a century, the ESA-NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has been essential in helping scientists understand the heart of our Solar System, the Sun. The SOHO mission launched 25 years ago this week, and to celebrate, ESA compiled a wonderful mosaic of images, and NASA put together a remarkable SOHO “greatest hits” timelapse video.

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Our Guide to This Month’s Total Solar Eclipse Over South America

2020 closes out with the final total solar eclipse of the decade, as totality crosses the southern tip of South America on December 14th. Did you happen to catch last Monday’s slight penumbral lunar eclipse? Sure, a penumbral may be the most anti-climatic of all of the varieties of eclipses… but this event also sets us up for the ultimate in astronomical events, as a total solar eclipse crosses South America on December 14th, 2020.

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Curly Spiral Galaxy M63

A bright spiral galaxy of the northern sky,Messier 63is nearby,about 30 million light-years distant toward the loyal constellationCanes Venatici.Also cataloged as NGC 5055, the majesticisland universeis nearly 100,000 light-years across, about the sizeof our own Milky Way.Its bright coreand majesticspiral arms lend the galaxyits popular name, The Sunflower Galaxy,while this exceptionally deep exposure also followsfaint, arcing star streams far into the galaxy’shalo.

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Solid Phosphorus has been Found in Comets. This Means They Contain All the Raw Elements for Life

Did comets deliver the elements essential for life on Earth? It’s looking more and more like they could have. At least one comet might have, anyway: 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. A new study using data from the ESA’s Rosetta mission shows that the comet contains the life-critical element phosphorous. Continue reading “Solid Phosphorus has been Found in Comets.

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Now you can Watch Actual Video of Arecibo Collapsing … If You Dare

The National Science Foundation released two different videos today showing the collapse of the Arecibo Observatory, as it happened on December 1, 2020. Needless to say, the footage is heartbreaking. Continue reading “Now you can Watch Actual Video of Arecibo Collapsing … If You Dare” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/149093/now-you-can-watch-actual-video-of-arecibo-collapsing-if-you-dare/

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The Stingray nebula is disappearing

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured never-before-seen images of the rapid fading of Stingray Nebula. This nebula is a cloud in space, surrounding a dying star. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/disappearing-stingray-neula-20-years-hubble-images

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China’s Chang’e-5 Probe Blasts Off From the Moon, Bringing Back a Full Load of Samples

For the first time in more than 40 years, a robotic spacecraft has blasted off from the Moon – and for the first time ever, it’s a Chinese spacecraft, carrying precious lunar samples back to Earth. The ascent vehicle for the Chang’e-5 mission fired its engine and rose a region called Oceanus Procellarum at 1510 UTC (11:10 p.

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The Antennae Galaxies in Collision

Sixty million light-years away toward the southerly constellation Corvus,these two large galaxies are colliding.The cosmic train wreck captured in stunning detail in thisHubble Space Telescope snapshottakes hundreds of millions of years to play out.Cataloged as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, the galaxies’ individual stars don’toften collide though.Their large clouds of molecular gas and dust do,triggering furious episodes of star formation near the center ofthe wreckage.

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Health Issues From Spaceflight Might Originate in the Mitochondria

It’s not easy living and working in space for extended periods of time. As NASA’s Twins Study illustrated, microgravity takes a toll on human physiology, which is followed by a painful transition back to normal gravity (just ask Scott Kelly!) Aside from muscle and bone degeneration, there’s diminished organ function, effects on cardiovascular health, the central nervous system, and “subtle changes” on the genetic level.

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Take a Look at What China’s Chang’e-5 Probe Is Seeing (and Doing) on the Moon

China’s Chang’e-5 robotic moon lander is due to spend only two days collecting samples of lunar rock and soil before it sends its shipment on its way back to Earth, but it’s making the most of the time. Just hours after landing on December 1st, the probe started using its robotic scoop and drill to dig up material at Mons Rümker, a lava dome in a region called Oceanus Procellarum, or the Ocean of Storms.

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Spacefaring Worms Show How Gravity Affects Genes

In this decade and the next, humanity is poised to go to space like never before. National space agencies will be sending astronauts back to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era, private launch services will spearhead the commercialization of Low Earth Orbit (LEO), missions to the outer Solar System will search for evidence of extraterrestrial life, and crewed missions to Mars are on the horizon.

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This is Mawrth Vallis on Mars, and it’s Positively Bursting with Evidence of Past Water Action on Mars

Here on Earth, geologists seek out deep channels into Earth’s rock, carved over the ages by flowing water. The exposed rock walls are like a visual timeline of a region’s geological history. On Mars, the surface water is long gone. But it flowed long enough to expose layers of rock just like here on Earth.

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Neutrinos Have Played a Huge Role in the Evolution of the Universe

It’s often said that we haven’t yet detected dark matter particles. That isn’t quite true. We haven’t detected the particles that comprise cold dark matter, but we have detected neutrinos. Neutrinos have mass and don’t interact strongly with light, so they are a form of dark matter. While they don’t solve the mystery of dark matter, they do play a role in the shape and evolution of our universe.

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Did the Wow! signal come from this star?

Where did the famous mystery Wow! signal, detected in 1977, come from? Astronomer Alberto Caballero might have pinpointed the host star. It’s a sunlike star 1,800 light-years away, in the direction to the center of our Milky Way. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/source-of-wow-signal-in-1977-sunlike-star-2mass-19281982-2640123

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Eye of Moon

Who’s watching who? The featured image of the Moon through a gap in a wall of rock may appear like a giant eye looking back at you. Although, in late October, it took only a single exposure to capture this visual double, it also took a lot of planning. The photographic goal was achieved by precise timing – needed for a nearly full moon to appear through the eye-shaped arch, by precise locating – needed for the angular size of the Moon to fit iconically inside the rock arch, and by good luck – needed for a clear sky and for the entire scheme to work.

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In the Far Future, Stellar Flybys Will Completely Dismantle the Solar System

Consumption and disintegration. Next time you want to be the life of the party—if you’re hanging out with cool nerds that is—just drop that phrase into the conversation. And when they look at you quizzically, just say that’s the eventual fate of the Solar System. Then adjust your cravat and take another sip of your absinthe.

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Spiral-shaped Planetary Disks Should Be More Common. Giant Planets Might Be Disrupting Their Formation

Planetary system formation is a process that involves astounding and complex forces. Humans have only just started trying to understand what goes on in this extraordinarily important phase of the development of new worlds. As such, we are continuing to make new discoveries and come up with better models that better fit the observations that our instruments are able to collect.

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China’s Chang’e-5 Probe Lands on the Moon and Gets Set to Bring Back Fresh Samples

For the third time in seven years, a Chinese robotic spacecraft has landed on the Moon — but now things will get really interesting: If the Chang’e-5 mission succeeds, the probe will deliver fresh samples from the Moon to Earth for the first time in 44 years. Chang’e-5’s paired lander and ascent vehicle touched down in a lunar region known as Oceanus Procellarium, near Mons Rümker, at 1513 UTC (11:13 p.

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The Arecibo Observatory Platform Has Collapsed

Early this morning, the 900-ton instrument platform suspended above the Arecibo Observatory collapsed and crashed down on the iconic telescope’s giant dish. The collapse occurred at about 7:55 a.m. local time, officially ending any possible hopes of refurbishing the famous observatory in Puerto Rico. Images of the collapse and subsequent damage started appearing on social media this morning; the National Science Foundation then confirmed via tweet that indeed the observatory had collapsed.

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Arecibo telescope receiver platform crashes onto dish

The telescope has been inoperable since mid-November, when multiple engineering companies reported that safety in and around it could not be guaranteed. Now their fears have come to pass. No one was injured. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/human-world/arecibo-telescope-receiver-platform-crashes-onto-dish

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NGC 346: Star Forming Cluster in the SMC

Are stars still forming in the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies? Found among the Small Magellanic Cloud’s (SMC’s) clusters and nebulas,NGC 346 isa star forming region about 200 light-years across,pictured here in the center of a Hubble Space Telescope image.A satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud(SMC)is a wonder of the southern sky, a mere210,000 light-years distant in the constellation of the Toucan (Tucana).

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My Dad Made a Table That Looks Like Jupiter

My Dad’s a pretty good woodworker, and recently completed a wooden table that looks surprisingly like Jupiter, Great Red Spot, atmospheric bands and all. Continue reading “My Dad Made a Table That Looks Like Jupiter” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/149023/my-dad-made-a-table-that-looks-like-jupiter/

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Astronomers find a galaxy that had its dark matter siphoned away

The galaxy NGC 1052-DF4 surprised scientists by having almost no dark matter to complement its stellar population. Recently a team of astronomers has provided an explanation: a nearby galaxy has stripped NGC 1052-DF4 of its dark matter, and is currently in the process of destroying the rest of it too. Continue reading “Astronomers find a galaxy that had its dark matter siphoned away”

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Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” XII: What is the Waterworlds Hypothesis?

Welcome back to our Fermi Paradox series, where we take a look at possible resolutions to Enrico Fermi’s famous question, “Where Is Everybody?” Today, we examine the possibility that the reason for the Great Silence is that many planets out there are just too watery! In 1950, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi sat down to lunch with some of his colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he had worked five years prior as part of the Manhattan Project.

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Hayabusa 2’s Sample is Landing on Earth December 6th

Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft is nearly back home, with precious cargo aboard! The sample-return mission departed asteroid Ryugu (162173 Ryugu) a little over a year ago, with soil samples and data that could provide clues to the early days of our Solar System. On December 6, 2020, the sample return container is set to land in the Australian outback.

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Figuring Out How To Breathe the Moon’s Regolith

Oxygen ranks right up there as one of the most important resources for use in space exploration. Not only is it a critical component of rocket fuel, it’s also necessary for astronauts to breathe anywhere outside Earth’s atmosphere. Availability of this abundant resource isn’t a problem – it’s widely available throughout the solar system.

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Cygnus Without Stars

The sky is filled with faintly glowing gas, though it can take asensitive camera and telescope to see it.For example, this twelve-degree-wide view of thenorthern part of the constellationCygnusreveals a complex array of cosmic clouds of gasalong the plane of our Milky Way galaxy.The featured mosaic of telescopic images was recorded through two filters: an H-alpha filter that transmits only visible red light fromglowing hydrogen atoms,and a blue filter that transmits primarily light emitted by the slightamount of energized oxygen.

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Powering through challenges of the Selene II lunar analog mission — Commander's report: Lunar day 7

Analog astronauts are currently facing challenges during a simulated Moon mission at the HI-SEAS habitat. Commander Musilova reports about the sacrifices the crew is making to survive the mission. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/hi-seas-selene-ii-moon-analog-mission-commander-report-1

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Verona Rupes: Tallest Known Cliff in the Solar System

Could you survive a jump off the tallest cliff in the Solar System?Quite possibly. Verona Rupes onUranus’ moonMirandais estimated to be 20 kilometers deep – ten times the depth of theEarth’s Grand Canyon. GivenMiranda’s low gravity, it would take about 12 minutes for a thrill-seeking adventurer to fall from the top, reaching the bottom at the speed of aracecar – about 200 kilometers per hour.

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One of These Pictures Is the Brain, the Other is the Universe. Can You Tell Which is Which?

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual.

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China’s Chang’e 5 mission is orbiting the moon!

China’s robotic Chang’e 5 will be the 1st sample-return from the moon since the 1970s. It launched successfully last week atop a Chinese Long March 5 rocket. Now it’s reported to have entered orbit around the moon. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/china-moon-mission-change-5-sample-return

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Neutrinos prove the Sun is doing a second kind of fusion in its core

Like all stars, our Sun is powered by the fusion of hydrogen into heavier elements. Nuclear fusion is not only what makes stars shine, it is also a primary source of the chemical elements that make the world around us. Much of our understanding of stellar fusion comes from theoretical models of atomic nuclei, but for our closest star, we also have another source: neutrinos created in the Sun’s core.

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NGC 6822: Barnard s Galaxy

Grand spiral galaxiesoften seem to get all the glory, flaunting theiryoung, bright, blue star clusters in beautiful, symmetric spiral arms.But small galaxies form stars too, like nearby NGC 6822, also known asBarnard’sGalaxy.Beyond the rich starfields in the constellation Sagittarius,NGC 6822 is a mere 1.5 million light-years away, a member of ourLocal Groupof galaxies.

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There’s Fabric on the Space Station That Scientists Are Using to “Listen” for Space Dust Impacts

One of the biggest threats to the International Space Station (ISS) comes from micrometeoroid impacts. A small hole in the wrong place can throw the resident astronauts into a life threatening situation. Currently, there is no active program to monitor these types of impacts, though scientists think they must be common given the ubiquity of small objects in the ISS’s orbit.

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A third of the stars in the Milky Way came from a single merger 10 billion years ago

Ten billion years ago the young Milky Way survived a titanic merger with a neighboring galaxy, eventually consuming the whole thing. Now, remnants of that fossil galaxy still swim in our galaxy’s core – and astronomers have discovered that almost a third of the Milky Way’s current population came from that dismantled rival.

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A new way to map out dark matter is 10 times more precise than the previous-best method

Astronomers have to be extra clever to map out the invisible dark matter in the universe. Recently, a team of researchers have improved an existing technique, making it up to ten times better at seeing in the dark. Continue reading “A new way to map out dark matter is 10 times more precise than the previous-best method”

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Every Year NASA Simulates Our View of the Moon for the Upcoming 12 Months. Here’s 2021, Hour by Hour

There’s no real reason most of us need to know what the Moon will look like on any particular day at any particular hour next year. No reason other than intellectual curiosity, that is. So if you have a healthy supply of that, then you’ll enjoy NASA’s latest contribution to staring at the internet and wondering where the time went.

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Chang e 5 Mission Launch

This Long March-5 rocket blasted off from theWenchang launch sitein southernmost Hainan province on TuesdayNovember 24, at 4:30 am Beijing Time,carrying China’sChang’e-5 mission to the Moon.The lunar landing mission is named for the ancient Chinese goddess of the moon.Its goal is to collectabout 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) oflunar material from the surface and return itto planet Earth, the first robotic sample return mission to theMoon since the Soviet Union’sLuna 24 missionin 1976.

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The Moon has Resources, but Not Enough to Go Around

It’s no secret that in this decade, NASA and other space agencies will be taking us back to the Moon (to stay, this time!) The key to this plan is developing the necessary infrastructure to support a sustainable program of crewed exploration and research. The commercial space sector also hopes to create lunar tourism and lunar mining, extracting and selling some of the Moon’s vast resources on the open market.

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Astronomers See a Newly Forming Planetary Disk That’s Continuing to Feed On Material from its Nebula

Over the last few years, astronomers have observed distant solar systems in their early stages of growth. ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) has captured images of young stars and their disks of material. And in those disks, they’ve spotted the tell-tale gaps that signal the presence of growing young planets. As they ramped up their efforts, astronomers were eventually able to spot the young planets themselves.

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The Great Turkey Nebula

Surprisingly reminiscent of The Great Nebula in Orion,The Great Turkey Nebula spans this creative field of view. Of courseif it were the Orion Nebula it would be our closestlarge stellar nursery, found at the edge of a large molecular clouda mere 1,500 light-years away.Also known as M42,the Orion Nebula is visible to the eye as the middle"star” in the sword of Orion the Hunter, a constellationnow rising in planet Earth’sevening skies.

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RocketLab Recovers a First-Stage Booster for the First Time: “Return to Sender”

In recent years, one of the most impressive developments for space exploration has been the rise of the commercial space industry (aka. NewSpace). Beyond fulfilling contracts with space agencies like NASA to provide commercial and crewed launch services, private aerospace companies are also fostering innovation that is helping to reduce the cost of sending payloads to space.

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Catch Monday Morning’s Subtle Lunar Eclipse

A penumbral lunar eclipse in the early morning hours of November 30th marks the start of the last eclipse season for 2020. Howling at the Moon Sunday night? Sunday night into Monday morning November 30th features not only the penultimate Full Moon for 2020, but the final lunar eclipse of the year, with a penumbral eclipse of the Moon.

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Solar astronomers can now predict future sunspots. There should be a big one in a couple of days

The surface of the Sun is a turbulent dance of gravity, plasma, and magnetic fields. Much like the weather on Earth, its behavior can seem unpredictable, but there are patterns to be found when you look closely. Continue reading “Solar astronomers can now predict future sunspots. There should be a big one in a couple of days”

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Andromeda over Patagonia

How far can you see? The Andromeda Galaxy at 2.5 million light years away is the most distant object easily seen with your unaided eye. Most other apparent denizens of the night sky – stars, clusters, and nebulae – typically range from a few hundred to a few thousand light-years away and lie well within our own Milky Way Galaxy.

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China’s Chang’e-5 Probe Is Off to Bring Back a Moon Sample — and NASA Hopes to See the Data

China’s Chang’e-5 probe is on its way to the Moon for a mission that could bring back the first samples of lunar rocks and dirt in more than 40 years. The 8.2-metric-ton spacecraft was sent into space from south China’s Wenchang Space Launch Center at 4:30 a.m. local time November 24th (20:30 Universal Time November 23rd) atop a Long March 5 rocket.

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Here’s what we know about Earth’s new minimoon

For only the second time in history, astronomers have discovered a new, natural-origin, minimoon orbiting the Earth. The minimoon, known as 2020CD3 (CD3 for short), was first discovered by Kacper Werizchos and Teddy Pruyne using data from the Catalina Sky Survey. Once CD3’s orbit was determined to be geo-centric, Queens University Belfast Post-Doctoral Research Fellow Dr.

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At One Time, This Region of Mars was Inundated by a “Megaflood”

Thanks to multiple robotic missions that have explored Mars’ atmosphere, surface, and geology, scientists have concluded that Mars was once a much warmer, wetter place. In addition to having a thicker atmosphere, the planet was actually warm enough that flowing water could exist on the surface in the form of rivers, lakes, and even an ocean that covered much of the northern hemisphere.

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Hubble Sees Dark Shadows That Could Be Cast by a Supermassive Black Hole

We use the term ‘supermassive black hole’ with a kind of casual familiarity. But stop and think about what they really are: Monstrous, beguiling singularities where the understood laws of physics and cosmology are brought to their knees. A region where gravity is so powerful that it warps everything around it, drawing material in—even light itself—and sometimes spitting out jets of energy at near-light-speed.

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The Helix Nebula from CFHT

Will our Sun look like this one day? The Helix Nebula is one of brightest and closest examples of aplanetary nebula, a gascloud created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star.The outer gasses of the starexpelled into space appear from ourvantage point as if we are looking down a helix.

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One of the Building Blocks of Life Can Form in the Harsh Environment of Deep Space Itself. No Star Required

In many ways, stars are the engines of creation. Their energy drives a whole host of processes necessary for life. Scientists thought that stellar radiation is needed to create compounds like the amino acid glycine, one of the building blocks of life. But a new study has found that glycine detected in comets formed in deep interstellar space when there was no stellar energy.

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Mars Might Have Lost its Water Quickly

Mars is an arid place, and aside from a tiny amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, all water exists as ice. But it wasn’t always this arid. Evidence of the planet’s past wet chapter dots the surface. Paleolakes like Jezero Crater, soon to be explored by NASA’s Perseverance Rover, provide stark evidence of Mars’ ancient past.

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Is Mars still volcanically active?

A new study of geologically young lava flows in Elysium Planitia suggests that Mars might still have residual volcanic activity below its surface. The finding could also correlate with seismic activity detected by the InSight lander in the same region and may have implications for possible martian life. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.

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Gravitational lenses could be the key to measuring the expansion rate of the Universe

One of the tenets of our cosmological model is that the universe is expanding. For reasons we still don’t fully understand, space itself is stretching over time. It’s a strange idea to wrap your head around, but the evidence for it is conclusive. It is not simply that galaxies appear to be moving away from us, as seen by their redshift.

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A Jupiter Vista from Juno

Why do colorful cloud bands encircle Jupiter?Jupiter’s top atmospheric layer is divided into light zones and dark belts that go all the way around the giant planet.It is high horizontal winds – in excess of 300 kilometers per hour – that cause the zones to spread out planet-wide.What causes these strong winds remains a topic of research.

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Aricebo’s Damage is so Serious and Dangerous, They’re Just Going to Scrap the Observatory Entirely

This past summer, the Arecibo Observatory suffered major damage when an auxiliary cable that supports the platform above the telescope broke and struck the reflector dish. Immediately thereafter, technicians with the observatory and the University of Central Florida (UCF) began working to stabilize the structure and assess the damage. Unfortunately, about two weeks ago (on Nov.

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A High Resolution, Cross-Eyed Look at the Entire Surface of Mars

A group of amateur and professional astronomers have collaborated to create what may be the highest resolution global map of Mars ever created with images taken from Earth. The images were taken with the 1-meter telescope at the Pic-du-Midi observatory in the Pyrenees of France, during several nights in October and November, 2020 when Mars was at opposition, or its closest approach to Earth.

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Dark Molecular Cloud Barnard 68

Where did all the stars go? What used to be considered a hole in the skyis now known to astronomers as a dark molecular cloud. Here, a high concentration ofdust andmolecular gasabsorb practically all the visible lightemitted from background stars. The eerily dark surroundings help make the interiors ofmolecular clouds some of the coldestand most isolated places in the universe.

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Mars and Meteor over Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

A brilliant yellowish celestial beacon, Mars stilldazzles in the night.Peering between clouds the wandering planet wasbriefly joined by the flash of a meteor in this moonlessdark sky on November 18.The single exposure was taken as the Earth swept up dust fromperiodic comet Tempel-Tuttle during the annualLeonid Meteor Shower.The view of a rugged western horizon looks alongthe Yulong mountain range in Yunnan province, southwestern China.

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Scientists Have Re-Analyzed Their Data and Still See a Signal of Phosphine at Venus. Just Less of it

In September, an international team announced that based on data obtained by the Atacama Millimeter-submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii, they had discovered phosphine gas (PH3) in the atmosphere of Venus. The news was met with its fair share of skepticism and controversy since phosphine is considered a possible indication of life (aka.

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The First Civilization We Contact Will Have Been Around Much Longer Than Humanity

Recently at UT, author Matt Williams has been writing a series called “Beyond Fermi’s Paradox”, which takes a look at possible resolutions to one of the most famous questions in science: “Where is everybody?” As Matt discusses, there are multiple hypothetical solutions, but there may eventually come a day when we can definitively answer it.

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Global Map: Mars at Opposition

This may be the best global Mars map made with a telescope based onplanet Earth.The image data were captured by a team of observers over six long nightsat the Pic du Midi mountaintop observatorybetween October 8 and November 1,when thefourth rock from the Sunhad not wandered far from its 2020opposition and its biggest and brightest appearance in Earth’s night sky.

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A 100-Meter Rotating Liquid Mirror Telescope on the Moon? Yes Please.

In the coming years, some truly awesome next-generation telescopes are going to be gathering their first light. Between space telescopes like James Webb and Nancy Grace Roman, and ground-based telescopes like the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) and the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), astronomers will be able to study aspects of the Universe that were previously inaccessible.

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There Might Be Water On All Rocky Planets

If you asked someone who was reasonably scientifically literate how Earth got its water, they’d likely tell you it came from asteroids—or maybe comets and planetesimals, too—that crashed into our planet in its early days. There’s detail, nuance, and uncertainty around that idea, but it’s widely believed to be the most likely reason that Earth has so much water.

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Some of the Milky Way’s oldest stars aren’t where they’re expected to be

One of the ways we categorize stars is by their metallicity. That is the fraction of heavier elements a star has compared to hydrogen and helium. It’s a useful metric because the metallicity of a star is a good measure of its age. Continue reading “Some of the Milky Way’s oldest stars aren’t where they’re expected to be”

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Does Jupiter’s moon Europa have geysers? If so, what’s their source?

If watery plumes do burst from Europa’s surface, they might originate not in the moon’s underground ocean, but instead in pockets of brine trapped in the moon’s crust. If that’s so, it could be a source of frustration for those who want to probe Europa’s ocean for possible life. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.

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Crew 1 Mission Launch Streak

Leaving planet Earthfor a moment, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket arcedinto the early evening sky last Sunday at 7:27 pm EST.This 3 minute 20 second exposure traces the launch streakover Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A.The rocket carried four astronauts en route tothe International Space Station on the first flight of a NASA-certifiedcommercial human spacecraft system.

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Earth’s toughest bacteria can survive unprotected in space for at least a year

A remarkable microbe named Deinococcus radiodurans (the name comes from the Greek deinos meaning terrible, kokkos meaning grain or berry, radius meaning radiation, and durare meaning surviving or withstanding) has survived a full year in the harsh environment of outer space aboard (but NOT inside) the International Space Station. This plucky prokaryote is affectionately known by fans as Conan the Bacterium, as seen in this classic 1990s NASA article.

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An Iceberg the Size of South Georgia Island is on a Collision Course with… South Georgia Island

Back in July 2017, satellites watched as an enormous iceberg broke free from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula. The trillion-ton behemoth has been drifting for over three years now. While it stayed close to its parent ice shelf for the first couple of years, it’s now heading directly for a collision with South Georgia Island.

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Past Supernovae Could be Written Into Tree Rings

When stars reach the end of their lifespan, they undergo gravitational collapse at their cores. The type of explosion that results is one of the most awesome astronomical events imaginable and (on rare occasions) can even be seen with the naked eye. The last time this occurred was in 1604 when a Type Ia supernova took place over 20,000 light-years away – commonly-known as Kepler’s Supernova (aka.

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Astronomers think they’ve seen a magnetar form for the first time; the collision of two neutron stars

A magnetar is a neutron star with a magnetic field thousands of times more powerful than those of typical neutron stars. Their fields are so strong that they can generate powerful, short-duration events such as soft gamma repeaters and fast radio bursts. While we have learned quite a bit about magnetars in recent years, we still don’t understand how neutron stars can form such intense magnetic fields.

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There’s a Vast Microbial Ecosystem Underneath the Crater that Wiped Out the Dinosaurs

How did life arise on Earth? How did it survive the Hadean eon, a time when repeated massive impacts excavated craters thousands of kilometres in diameter into the Earth’s surface? Those impacts turned the Earth into a hellish place, where the oceans turned to steam, and the atmosphere was filled with rock vapour.

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A Double Star Cluster in Perseus

Most star clusters are singularly impressive. Open clusters NGC 869 and NGC 884, however, could be considered doubly impressive. Also known as “h and chi Persei”, this unusual double cluster, shown above, is bright enough to be seen from a dark location without even binoculars. Although their discovery surely predates recorded history, the Greek astronomer Hipparchus notably cataloged the double cluster.

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Fast radio bursts within the Milky Way seem to be coming from magnetars

Fast radio bursts are some of the most mysterious events known in astronomy, but they are slowly becoming better understood. Case in point: recent observations of a fast radio burst in the Milky Way reveals the powerhouse behind the blasts: a flaring magnetar. Continue reading “Fast radio bursts within the Milky Way seem to be coming from magnetars”

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A Record Close Shave: Asteroid 2020 VT4 Just Skimmed by Earth

Wow. A low-flying space rock set a record last Friday (appropriately, the 13th), when 2020 VT4 passed just under 400 kilometers (250 miles) over the Southern Pacific. Continue reading “A Record Close Shave: Asteroid 2020 VT4 Just Skimmed by Earth” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/148808/a-record-close-shave-asteroid-2020-vt4-just-skimmed-by-earth/

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Merging Black Holes and Neutron Stars. All the Gravitational Wave Events Seen So Far in One Picture

The Theory of Relativity predicted the existence of black holes and neutron stars. Einstein gets the credit for the theory because of his paper published in 1915, even though other scientists’ work helped it along. But regardless of the minds behind it, the theory predicted black holes, neutron stars, and the gravitational waves from their mergers.

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Hubble sees the brightest kilonova yet

Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope reveal intense infrared radiation from an unusual kilonova probably created by the collision of neutron stars. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/unusual-kilonova-infrared-light-neutron-stars-grb

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Clues to Mars life in Earth’s Atacama Desert

Researchers in the U.S. and Spain have discovered a plethora of previously unknown microbes living in wet clay layers below Chile’s arid Atacama Desert. The finding will help future rovers search for life on Mars. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/microbes-clay-atacama-desert-life-on-mars

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A Glowing STEVE and the Milky Way

What’s creating these long glowing streaks in the sky?No one is sure. Known as Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancements (STEVEs), these luminous light-purple sky ribbons may resemble regular auroras, but recent research reveals significant differences.A STEVE’s great length and unusual colors, when measured precisely, indicate that it may be related to a subauroral ion drift (SAID), a supersonic river of hot atmospheric ions thought previously to be invisible.

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Light and Glory over Crete

The month was July, the place was the Greek island of Crete, and the sky was spectacular.Of course there were the usual stars like Polaris, Vega, and Antares – and that common asterism everyone knows: the Big Dipper.But this sky was just getting started. The band of the Milky Way Galaxy stunned as it arched across the night like a bridge made of stars and dust but dotted with red nebula like candy.

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This asteroid just skimmed Earth’s atmosphere

The asteroid – 2020 VT4 – is estimated to be between 16 and 36 feet (5-11 meters). It skimmed the top of our atmosphere on Friday, November 13, 2020. Astronomers spotted it one day later. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2020-vt4-skimmed-atmosphere-fri-nov-13-2020

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SpaceX’s Resilience Spacecraft has Lifted Off and is Headed for the ISS!

Earlier this evening (Sunday, November 15th, 2020), NASA and SpaceX achieved another historical milestone. Six months after successfully sending astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the ISS with the Cargo-2 mission, the US demonstrated the restoration of domestic launch capability by sending the fully-crewed Crew Dragon spacecraft (Resilience) on an operational mission to the ISS.

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What Role do Radioactive Elements Play in a Planet’s Habitability?

To date, astronomers have confirmed the existence of 4,301 extrasolar planets in 3,192 star systems, with another 5,650 candidates awaiting confirmation. In the coming years, next-generation telescopes will allow astronomers to directly observe many of these exoplanets and place tighter constraints on their potential habitability. In time, this could lead to the discovery of life beyond our Solar System!

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The Average Temperature of the Universe has Been Getting Hotter and Hotter

For almost a century, astronomers have understood that the Universe is in a state of expansion. Since the 1990s, they have come to understand that as of four billion years ago, the rate of expansion has been speeding up. As this progresses, and the galaxy clusters and filaments of the Universe move farther apart, scientists theorize that the mean temperature of the Universe will gradually decline.

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Venus Held Onto its Water Surprisingly Well During its History

Named for the ancient goddess of fertility, the planet Venus could not be more hostile to life as we know it. Aside from being the hottest planet in the Solar System, Venus has also an atmosphere that is 92 times denser than Earth’s, and regularly experiences sulfuric acid rain. But as we’ve learned from multiple surveys, Venus was once a much milder climate and even had vast oceans on its surface.

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Europa’s Nightside Glows in the Dark

In a few years, NASA will be sending a spacecraft to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Known as the Europa Clipper mission, this orbiter will examine the surface more closely to search for plume activity and evidence of biosignatures. Such a find could answer the burning question of whether or not there is life within this moon, which is something scientists have speculated about since the 1970s.

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From a Tempest to a Trickle: Prospects for the 2020 Leonid Meteor Shower

Following the Leonid meteors in 2020. We witnessed an amazing astronomical spectacle in the early morning skies over the Kuwaiti desert in November 1998. That year, the Leonid meteors put on a spectacular display, topping an estimated 1,000 meteors per hour near sunrise. On most years, however, the Lion whimpers with a few paltry meteors per hour, but once every 33 years or so, the mighty Leonids can roar with an amazing display reaching storm level proportions.

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Terrify yourself with LeoLabs’ visualization of satellites and space debris around Earth

Founded in 2016, Menlo Park, California-based LeoLabs, is a mind-blowing company. They have built, and continue to expand, a network of ground-based, phased array radars worldwide to keep track of the thousands of operational satellites, defunct satellites, spent rocket bodies, and pieces of debris in orbit around the Earth. Not only is their radar technology ground-breaking, but they have built a spectacular, if not a little terrifying, digital visualization of the traffic in space that is free for the public to explore.

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Meteorite Tells Us About Water on Mars 4.4 Billion Years Ago

Meteorites often offer terrific glimpses into worlds we are unable to otherwise access. Sometimes those worlds are simply fragments of asteroids that didn’t burn up when they entered the atmosphere. But sometimes, they come from the Moon or Mars. Part of what makes these types of meteorites interesting is that they don’t necessarily come from what we now think of as two of our nearest neighbors.

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A Second Cable has Failed at Arecibo, Causing Even More Damage to the Radio Observatory

Another main cable that supports the Arecibo Observatory broke last week, falling onto the reflector dish and causing more damage. This is the second time a cable has snapped on the iconic radio observatory in just three months. The new damage is an unfortunate and devastating setback for the observatory, just as repairs from the first accident were about to begin.

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Can the EmDrive actually work for space travel?

The EmDrive doesn’t just violate our fundamental understanding of the universe; the experiments that claim to measure an effect haven’t been replicated. When it comes to the EmDrive, keep dreaming. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/can-emdrive-space-propulsion-concept-work

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Australia’s Parkes Telescope Just Got a New Name: Murriyang, Which Means “Skyworld”

Australia’s iconic 64-meter Parkes radio telescope has been given a new traditional name to recognize the Wiradjuri, who own the land on which the telescope sits. The Wiradjuri are some of Australia’s First People who have occupied the continent and its adjacent islands for over 65,000 years. The telescope received the name Murriyang, which represents the ‘Skyworld’ where a prominent creator spirit of the Wiradjuri Dreaming, Biyaami (Baiame), lives.

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The Driest Place on Earth Could Help Predict How Life Might be Surviving on Mars

In the next few years, Mars will be visited by three new rovers, the Perseverance, Tianwen-1, and Rosalind Franklin missions. Like their predecessors – Pathfinder and Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity, and Curiosity – these robotic missions will explore the surface, searching for evidence of past and present life. But even after years of exploring, an important question remains: where is the best place to look?

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Most light pollution isn’t coming from streetlights

Light pollution is the arch nemesis of astronomy, spoiling both the enjoyment of the night sky and the professional study of our universe. For years we’ve assumed that streetlights are the main culprit behind light pollution, but a recent study has shown that streetlights contribute no more than 20% of all the pollution, and if we want to solve this vexing astronomical problem, we have to think harder.

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One of the Terms of Service For Starlink is that You “Recognize Mars as a Free Planet”

In May of 2019, SpaceX began launching its Starlink constellation with the launch of its first 60 satellites. To date, the company has launched over 800 satellites and (as of this summer) is producing them at a rate of about 120 a month. By late 2021 or 2022, Elon Musk hopes to have a constellation of 1,440 satellites providing near-global service and perhaps as many as 42,000 providing internet to the entire planet before the decade is out.

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Lunar Dust is Still One of The Biggest Challenges Facing Moon Exploration

In the coming years, astronauts will be returning to the Moon for the first time since the closing of the Apollo Era. Beyond that, NASA and other space agencies plan to establish the necessary infrastructure to maintain a human presence there. This will include the Artemis Gateway in orbit (formerly the Lunar Gateway) and bases on the surface, like NASA’s Artemis Base Camp and the ESA’s International Moon Village.

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Massive stars get kicked out of clusters

The largest stars in the universe tend to be loners, and new research points to the reason why. Although massive stars are born in clusters of many smaller brethren, they quickly get kicked out, forced to spend their lives alone. Continue reading “Massive stars get kicked out of clusters” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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Vera Rubin Should be Able to Detect a Couple of Interstellar Objects a Month.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, formerly the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), will commence operations sometime next year. Not wanting to let a perfectly good acronym go to waste, its first campaign will be known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). This ten-year survey will study everything from dark matter and dark energy to the formation of the Milky Way, and small objects in our Solar System.

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One Mars Trojan asteroid has the same chemical signature as the Earth’s moon

Although Mars is much smaller than Earth, it has two moons. Deimos and Phobos were probably once asteroids that were captured by the gravity of Mars. The red planet has also captured nine other small bodies. These asteroids don’t orbit Mars directly, but instead, orbit gravitationally stable points on either side of the planet known as Lagrange points.

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The sun is becoming active again

EarthSky community members have captured the giant sunspot region – AR 2781 – currently making its way across the sun’s visible surface. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/photos-sunspots-ar2781-solar-cycle-25

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Titan’s Atmosphere Has All the Ingredients For Life. But Not Life as We Know It

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a team of scientists has identified a mysterious molecule in Titan’s atmosphere. It’s called cyclopropenylidene (C3H2), a simple carbon-based compound that has never been seen in an atmosphere before. According to the team’s study published in The Astronomical Journal, this molecule could be a precursor to more complex compounds that could indicate possible life on Titan.

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Hubble telescope reveals asteroid Psyche’s rusty surface

Scientists already had Psyche classified as a metallic asteroid, but new observations with the Hubble telescope reveal its rusty surface and provide scientists with a unique view into what Earth-like planets are like during their formation. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/hubble-asteroid-psyche-iron-nickel-rust-protoplanet

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NASA is Looking for Ideas on How to Jump-Start a Lunar Economy!

In less than four years, NASA intends to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon as part of Project Artemis. This will be the first crewed mission to the lunar surface since Apollo 17, the last mission of the Apollo Program, in 1972. It’s also the culmination of decades of planning, research, development, and robotic missions that helped pave the way.

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How Jupiter’s moon Io gets its hellish atmosphere

Hot, active volcanoes produce almost half of Jupiter’s moon Io’s sulfur atmosphere, according to new observations using the ALMA telescope. The rest comes from cold sulfur deposits that freeze on the surface, then sublimate in sunlight. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/io-sulfur-volcanoes-hot-so2-cold-so2

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The Only Radio Antenna Capable of Communicating with Voyager 2 Came Back Online During Repairs and Upgrades. Contact Re-established

“Voyager 2, this is Earth calling. Do you read?” Last week, the answer was finally “yes.” And thankfully, after eight months of no communications, Voyager2 seems to be just fine. Continue reading “The Only Radio Antenna Capable of Communicating with Voyager 2 Came Back Online During Repairs and Upgrades. Contact Re-established”

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Jupiter gives us Pluto in 2020

The 3rd of this year’s 3 Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions is coming up on November 12, 2020. Jupiter won’t have another conjunction with Pluto again until February 4, 2033. And another one this good? Not for centuries. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/how-to-see-pluto-in-the-night-sky

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Sample… stowed

NASA’s Osiris Rex mission has just reached a major milestone with a successful collection of a sample of material from the asteroid Bennu. Now the material is safely stowed and on its way back to Earth. Continue reading “Sample… stowed” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/148683/sample-stowed/

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How Will Starlink’s Packet Routing Work?

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite cluster has been receiving more and more headline space recently as it continues adding satellites at a breathtaking pace. Much of this news coverage has focused on how it’s impacting amateur skygazers and how it could benefit people in far-flung regions. But technical details do matter, and over on Casey Handmer’s blog there was a recent discussion of one of the most important aspects of how Starlink actually operates – what will it do with its data?

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Astronauts and explorers on Mars could eat lab-grown steaks

Growing meat without the need to grow a whole animal has been the dream of agriculturalists and foodies everywhere for decades. More and more companies are jumping on the bandwagon to try to truly recreate the experience of eating meat without the downsides so often associated with its creation. One of those companies is Aleph Farms, based in Israel, which just announced their newest program – Aleph Zero, an effort to grow meat in industrial quantities in space.

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The Spherical Structure at the Core of the Milky Way Formed in a Single Burst of Star Formation

Like other spiral galaxies, the Milky Way has a bulging sphere of stars in its center. It’s called “The Bulge,” and it’s roughly 10,000 light-years in radius. Astronomers have debated the bulge’s origins, with some research showing that multiple episodes of star formation created it. But a new survey with the NOIRLab’s Dark Energy Camera suggests that one single epic burst of star formation created the bulge over 10 billion years ago.

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Astronomers measure a change in orbit for infamous asteroid Apophis

Astronomers in Hawaii have detected the Yarkovsky effect – a minuscule push imparted by sunlight – for asteroid Apophis. The effect is particularly important for Apophis, because it relates to the possibility of an Earth impact in 2068. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-99942-apophis-encounters-2029-2036-2068

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New Scans Give us a Better View of the Metal Asteroid Psyche

In 2022, NASA will launch a spacecraft to asteroid Psyche (16 Psyche), one of the largest in the asteroid belt, and the only known asteroid to be composed almost entirely of metals like iron and nickel. Now, scientists have taken a new look at Psyche using the Hubble Space Telescope, conducting the first ultraviolet observations of this asteroid since the 1980s.

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Astronomers release a black hole family portrait

“Black hole family portrait” is a fancy way of saying “new catalog.” But it’s a very important and exciting catalog, released October 28, 2020 by gravitational wave astronomers, containing 39 new signals from black hole or neutron star collisions. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/ligo-virgo-new-catalog-gwtc-2-black-hole-family-portrait

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Based on Kepler Data, There’s a 95% Chance of an Earth-Like Planet Within 20 Light-Years

In the past few decades, the study of exoplanets has grown by leaps and bounds, with 4296 confirmed discoveries in 3,188 systems and an additional 5,634 candidates awaiting confirmation. Because of this, scientists have been able to get a better idea about the number of potentially-habitable planets that could be out there.

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Are the Clouds of Jupiter Haunted?

Are spirits amongst the clouds of Jupiter? The answer might be yes! A recent publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets has identified what appear to be “Spites” in the Jovian Atmosphere. Artist illustration shows what a sprite could look like in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Named after a mischievous, quick-witted character in English folklore, sprites last for only a few milliseconds.

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Electric! Astronomers find sprites in Jupiter’s atmosphere

Scientists with NASA’s Juno mission say they have detected sprites or elves – electrical phenomena above thunderstorms on Earth – in the clouds of Jupiter for the first time. Unlike the red-colored earthly ones however, the Jovian ones are blue. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/sprites-or-elves-in-jupiters-atmosphere-lightning-juno

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NASA Announces the Discovery of Water in the Sunlit Parts of the Moon

For decades, astronomers have speculated that there may be water on the Moon. In recent years, this speculation was confirmed one orbiting satellite after another detected water ice around the Moon’s southern polar region. Within this part of the lunar surface, known as the South-Pole Aitken Basin, water ice is able to persist because of the many permanently-shadowed craters that are located there.

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Galaxies Grew Quickly and Early On in the Universe

The behaviour of galaxies in the early Universe attracts a lot of attention from researchers. In fact, everything about the early Universe is under intense scientific scrutiny for obvious reasons. But unlike the Universe’s first stars, which have all died long ago, the galaxies we see around us—including our own—have been here since the early days.

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Something other than just gravity is contributing to the shape of dark matter halos

It now seems clear that dark matter interacts more than just gravitationally. Earlier studies have hinted at this, and a new study supports the idea even further. What’s interesting about this latest work is that it studies dark matter interactions through entropy. Continue reading “Something other than just gravity is contributing to the shape of dark matter halos”

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NASA releases new spooky space-themed posters about extreme places in the Universe

One of six new spooky posters from NASA’s Galaxy of Horrors. Credit NASA-JPL/Caltech While ghouls and goblins may provide the ghastly delights many of us associate with this time of year, NASA has just released a series of spooky space-themed posters that are more unearthly than any monsters or scary stories told around terrestrial campfires.

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New Simulation Shows Exactly What’s Happening as Neutron Stars Merge

Neutron stars are the remnants of massive stars that explode as supernovae at the end of their fusion lives. They’re super-dense cores where all of the protons and electrons are crushed into neutrons by the overpowering gravity of the dead star. They’re the smallest and densest stellar objects, except for black holes, and possibly other arcane, hypothetical objects like quark stars.

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Room-temperature Superconductivity Achieved for the First Time, but There’s a Catch

One of the most interesting things about space exploration is how many technologies have an impact on our ability to reach farther. New technologies that might not immediately be used in space can still eventually have a profound long-term impact. On the other hand, everyone knows some technologies will be immediately game changing.

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ISS Crew Return Safely to Earth

On the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 21st, the crew of Expedition 63 finally returned to Earth after spending Arrived196 days in space. It all began when NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy (commander) and Russian cosmonauts Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin (both flight engineers) departed the International Space Station (ISS) aboard their Soyuz spacecraft at 07:32 PM EDT (04:32 PM PDT) and landed in Kazakhstan by 10:54 PM EDT (07:54 PM PDT).

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What Martian Settlers Need to Know About Soil Can Teach us How to Grow Better on Earth

When human beings start living in space for extended periods of time they will need to be as self-sufficient as possible. The same holds true for settlements built on the Moon, on Mars, and other bodies in the Solar System. To avoid being entirely dependent on resupply missions from Earth (which is costly and time-consuming) the inhabitants will need to harvest resources locally – aka.

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Lighting a path to find Planet Nine

The search for Planet Nine – a hypothesized 9th planet in our solar system – may come down to pinpointing the faintest orbital trails in an incredibly dark corner of space. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/lighting-path-to-find-planet-nine

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This is What Perseverance’s Landing Site Looked Like Billions of Years Ago. See Why it’s Such a Compelling Target?

Today is a milestone in NASA’s Perseverance mission to Mars. At 1:40 pm Pacific time today, the rover will have traveled 235.4 million km (146.3 million miles). That means the spacecraft is halfway to Mars and its rendezvous with Jezero Crater. The spacecraft isn’t traveling in a straight line, and the planets are moving, so it’s not equidistant to both planets.

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Scientists in Japan Have Found a Detailed Record of the Earth’s Last Magnetic Reversal, 773,000 Years Ago

Every 200,000 to 300,000 years Earth’s magnetic poles reverse. What was once the north pole becomes the south, and vice versa. It’s a time of invisible upheaval. The last reversal was unusual because it was so long ago. For some reason, the poles have remained oriented the way they are now for about three-quarters of a million years.

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Astronomers are ready and waiting to detect the neutrino blast from a nearby supernova explosion like Betelgeuse

When giant stars die in impressive supernova blasts, about 99% of the energy released goes into producing a flood of neutrinos. These tiny, ghostly particles slip through tons of matter like it’s not even there. But a new generation of detectors will be able to catch them, telling us of the inner machinations of the deaths of stars.

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OSIRIS-REx Collected So Much Material, the Sample Capsule Overflowed. Time to Bring it All Home.

Is there such as thing as too much asteroid? Scientists and engineers for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx decided to perform an “early stow” of the sample from Asteroid Bennu collected by the spacecraft on October 20, because the collection container is full-to-overflowing, possibly jamming the collector head from sealing shut. Continue reading “OSIRIS-REx Collected So Much Material, the Sample Capsule Overflowed.

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Boo! A Halloween Blue Moon

The final Blue Moon of the decade this weekend rounds out October 2020. Halloween. It’s not only a great time to dress up in ghoulish garb going from house to house, but a great time for some (in 2020, socially-distanced) sidewalk astronomy. This year also offers up a special trick-or-treat event, as the second Full Moon of October falls on the very last day of the month.

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Astronomers Map Out the Raw Material for New Star Formation in the Milky Way

A team of researchers has discovered a complex network of filamentary structures in the Milky Way. The structures are made of atomic hydrogen gas. And we all know that stars are made mostly of hydrogen gas. Not only is all that hydrogen potential future star-stuff, the team found that its filamentary structure is also a historical imprint of some of the goings-on in the Milky Way.

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There’s a new record for the shortest time measurement: how long it takes light to cross a hydrogen molecule

To measure small differences in time, you need a really tiny clock, and researchers in Germany have discovered the smallest known clock: a single hydrogen molecule. Using the travel of light across the length of that molecule, those scientists have measured the smallest interval of time ever: 247 zeptoseconds. Don’t know what a “zepto” is?

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SpaceX Starship Passes Static Fire Test With Three Raptor Engines, Finally Gets Nose Cone!

It’s beginning to look like SpaceX will attempt to make the 15 km (9.3 mi) hop test before Christmas! After two successful 150 m (~500 ft) hops with the SN5 and SN6 prototypes, engineers at SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch facility in South Texas rolled out the SN8 – the first Starship prototype to have three Raptor engines.

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The Color of Habitable Worlds

“This is where we live. On a Blue Dot.” said Carl Sagan when the now famous Pale Blue Dot photo was released. Captured February 14, 1990 by the Voyager 1 Space Probe, Pale Blue Dot remains the most distant photograph of the Earth ever taken at 6 billion kilometers. This past February marked the 30th anniversary of Pale Blue Dot which was reprocessed using modern digital photo techniques creating an even more remarkable image.

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Mixing Science and Art, One Painting at a Time

All her life, Laci Shea Brock has needed to be creative and inventive. So, perhaps it’s not completely surprising that in addition to pursuing her PhD in planetary sciences and astrophysics, she’s also a talented artist. “My Dad says I’ve always had a paintbrush in my hand,” Brock said, “and I’ve always been inspired by space and nature.

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How the world came to understand black holes

Earlier this month, Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez split the 2020 physics Nobel Prize for decades of work on black holes. Click here to learn more about their monumental achievement and about the history of our understanding of these exotic objects in space. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/nobel-prize-3-astrophysicists-black-holess-penrose-genzel-ghez

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Venus seen by BepiColombo

The sun’s second planet, Venus, as seen from the BepiColombo spacecraft as it passed on its way to the innermost planet, Mercury, earlier this month. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/animated-gif-venus-seen-by-bepicolombo

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New Receiver Will Boost Interplanetary Communication

If humans want to travel about the solar system, they’ll need to be able to communicate. As we look forward to crewed missions to the Moon and Mars, communication technology will pose a challenge we haven’t faced since the 1970s. Continue reading “New Receiver Will Boost Interplanetary Communication” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.

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NASA to announce mysterious moon discovery on Monday

NASA’s upcoming news conference on October 26, 2020 promises “an exciting new discovery about the moon,” with references to the agency’s ambitious Artemis program, a plan to send the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/nasa-moon-announcement-monday-october-26-2020-sofia

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Astronomers Find the Hollowed-Out Shell of a Dwarf Galaxy that Collided With the Milky Way Billions of Years Ago

In 2005 astronomers found a dense grouping of stars in the Virgo constellation. It looked like a star cluster, except further surveys showed that some of the stars are moving towards us, and some are moving away. That finding was unexpected and suggested the Stream was no simple star cluster. A 2019 study showed that the grouping of stars is no star cluster at all; instead, it’s the hollowed-out shell of a dwarf spheroidal galaxy that merged with the Milky Way.

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US astronaut votes early from space station

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins shared her voting selfie from orbit after stating before her launch earlier this month that she would cast her ballot from the International Space Station. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/nasa-astronaut-votes-from-space-2020

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Betelgeuse is smaller, closer, and won’t explode any time soon

According to new research, the red supergiant star Betelgeuse – which began to dim dramatically in brightness in late 2019 – might not explode for another 100,000 years. The star is also smaller and closer to us than first thought. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/betelgeuse-supergiant-smaller-closer-wont-explode-soon

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Astronomers Challenge Recent Findings About Venus. “No Statistically Significant Detection of Phosphine”

In September, a team of scientists reported finding phosphine in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Phosphine can be a biomarker and is here on Earth. But it’s also present on Jupiter, where it’s produced abiotically. The discovery led to conjecture about what kind of life might survive in Venus’ atmosphere, continually producing the easily-degraded phosphine.

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Scientists Think They Know What Caused the Deadliest Mass Extinction in the History of the Earth

Humanity can have a love/hate relationship with itself, but there’s no denying that we’re the pinnacle of evolution on Earth as things stand now. But it took an awfully long time for evolution to produce beings such as we. Several times, life had to drag itself back from near annihilation. The largest extinction setback was the Permian-Triassic extinction, also called the “Great Dying,” some 252 million years ago.

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Top 10 things to know about asteroid Bennu

Take a video tour of asteroid Bennu’s remarkable terrain and read a list of 10 cool things scientists know about this pristine remnant from the early days of our solar system. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/top-10-things-to-know-about-asteroid-bennu-video-tour

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Tales of Two Fall Comets: 88P Howell and M3 ATLAS

Two more comets – 88P Howell and M3 ATLAS – are worth scouting the sky for into November 2020. If you’re like us, you’ve been at taking advantage of every clear night during quarantine to get out and observe the night sky. Thankfully, 2020 has thus far been a ‘comet year,’ with a steady string of binocular comets, led by bright comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE this summer.

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Super-Earth exoplanets often have giant ‘Jupiter’ bodyguards

Planetary systems with both super-Earths and Jupiter-type planets may be common, according to a new study. As in our own solar system, the giant planets would act as “bodyguards” protecting the smaller planets from asteroid impacts. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/super-earth-exoplanet-giant-jupiter-bodyguard

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Why are galaxies different shapes?

Some galaxies are swirling blue disks, others are red spheres or misshapen, clumpy messes or something in between. Why the different configurations? Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.space.com/why-are-galaxies-different-shapes.html

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What Would a Realistic Space Battle Look Like?

Science fiction space movies can do a poor job of educating people about space. In the movies, hot-shot pilots direct their dueling space ships through space as if they’re flying through an atmosphere. They bank and turn and perform loops and rolls, maybe throw in a quick Immelman, as if they’re subject to Earth’s gravity.

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The Crew of the ISS has Found the Source of the Station’s Air Leak

It’s no secret that the International Space Station (ISS) has had a problem with leaks for more than a year. While pressure loss is a perpetual issue, officials noticed an increase last September, which became more serious over the past summer. As of August, the crew began a hard-target search for the source of the leak, eventually narrowing it down to the Zvezda module in the Russian section.

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We use the transit method to find other planets. Which extraterrestrial civilizations could use the transit method to find Earth?

We have discovered more than 4,000 planets orbiting distant stars. They are a diverse group, from hot Jupiters that orbit red dwarf stars in a few days to rocky Earth-like worlds that orbit Sun-like stars. With spacecraft such as Gaia and TESS, that number will rise quickly, perhaps someday leading to the discovery of a world where intelligent life might thrive.

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The Oxygen Supply has Failed in the Russian Zvezda Module of the ISS. Don’t Worry, the Astronauts aren’t in Danger, but the Station is Showing its Age

In November of 1998, the first modules of the International Space Station (ISS) were launched into orbit, and the first crew arrived almost two years later. With almost twenty years of hosting astronauts from all over the world, the ISS holds the record for the longest continuous human presence in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

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Success! OSIRIS-REx Touches Asteroid Bennu to Collect Samples

Out in the asteroid belt, 207 million miles (334 million km) from Earth, a little spacecraft briefly touched down on the surface of Asteroid Bennu today, attempting to collect samples of dust and rocks. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) spent about 10 seconds on the ancient asteroid to collect samples, slated to come back to Earth in 2023.

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Wow, Betelgeuse Might Be 25% Closer than Previously Believed

In the last year, Betelgeuse has experienced two episodes of dimming. Normally, it’s one of the ten brightest stars in the sky, and astrophysicists and astronomers got busy trying to understand what was happening with the red supergiant. Different research came up with some possible answers: Enormous starspots, a build-up of dust, pre-supernova convulsions.

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It’s still possible to detect the site of the 2017 kilonova explosion

It’s been over a thousand days since the historic kilonova observation, and yet the region continues to emit X-rays, long after models predicted they should have faded away. What’s going on? Continue reading “It’s still possible to detect the site of the 2017 kilonova explosion” Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://www.universetoday.com/148410/its-still-possible-to-detect-the-site-of-the-2017-kilonova-explosion/

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Watch “Live” as NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Nabs an Asteroid Sample

Today’s the day! The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is going to reach out and boop asteroid Bennu! You can watch the broadcast here as the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission attempts to collect a sample of an asteroid on Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 6:12 pm EDT (5:12 pm CDT, 3:12 PDT).

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A new method for predicting large solar flares

Solar storms pose risks for society, but more accurate space weather forecasts appear to be coming soon. A team of researchers in Japan has developed a physics-based method for predicting large solar flares, including powerful and potentially dangerous X-flares. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/kanya-kusano-new-method-solar-flare-prediction

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Favorite photos of October’s young moon

In the past few days, several EarthSky Community members around the world shared their photos of the young moon, a thin crescent in the west after sunset. Beautiful! Thanks to all who contributed. Διαβάστε περισσότερα: https://earthsky.org/space/young-moon-photos-october-2020

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You’ll Experience 200 Times More Radiation Standing on the Moon than Standing on the Earth

January 31, 2021, will mark 50 years since the launch of Apollo 14. This historic mission was the first to broadcast a color television signal from the surface of the Moon and marked the heroic return to space of America’s first astronaut, Alan Shepard, who famously hit two golf balls off of the lunar regolith.

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NASA and Seven Countries Sign the Artemis Accords for the Exploration of the Moon. Russia Declined to Participate

It looks like Russia is thumbing its nose at international cooperation on the Moon. They’ve refused to sign the Artemis Accords, which are a set of rules governing Lunar exploration. NASA and seven other countries have signed on already, with more to come. Continue reading “NASA and Seven Countries Sign the Artemis Accords for the Exploration of the Moon.

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What’s Happening with Betelgeuse? Astronomers Propose a Specialized Telescope to Watch the Star Every Night

Starting in late 2019, Betelgeuse began drawing a lot of attention after it mysteriously started dimming, only to brighten again a few months later. For a variable star like Betelgeuse, periodic dimming and brightening are normal, but the extent of its fluctuation led to all sorts of theories as to what might be causing it.

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